^•v  PRINCETON,  N.  J.  *4f. 


Library  of  Br.  A.  A.  Eodge.      Presented. 


BR  85 

.H5 

Hill, 

Thomas 

,  1818- 

-1891. 

A  statement 

of  the 

natural 

sources  of 

theoloj 

?y 

A   STATEMENT 

OF    THE 

NATURAL  SOURCES  OF  THEOLOGY 

WITH    A 

DISCUSSION    OF   THEIR   VALIDITY, 

AND    OF 

MODERN  SCEPTICAL  OBJECTIONS; 

TO    WHICH    IS   ADDED    AN   ARTICLE    ON    THE 

FIRST  CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS. 

BY 

THOMAS   HILL,   D.D.,  LL.D. 


REPRINTED    PROM    THE    BIBLIOTHECA    SACRA. 


PUBLISHED  BY  W.  F.  DRAPER 

1877. 


Copyright,  1877.    By  W.  F.  Draper. 


PUBLISHER'S    NOTE. 


In  reprinting  the  following  Articles  from  the  plates  of 
the  Bibliotheca  Sacra  no  further  change  has  been  made 
than  to  alter  the  paging,  so  as  to  make  all  the  pages  of  the 
present  edition  run  in  a  consecutive  series  of  numbers,  for 
the  greater  convenience  of  the  reader  in  using  the  Table  of 
Contents.  The  dates  of  original  publication  are  left  at  the 
top  of  the  pages,  as  being  an  additional  help  in  referring 
to  passages. 


CONTENTS. 


I.  Art.  I.  Jan.  1874.    Theology  a  Possible  Science: 

French  Atheism  and  Comte's  Positive  Philosophy,  1-3  ;  Limitations 
of  Human  Thought,  3-1 9  ;  Hamilton's  statement,  4  ;  bis  orthodoxy,  5  ; 
criticism  of  his  views,  5-7;  attempt  at  a  better  statement,  8-11; 
criticism  of  Mansel,  Kant,  Plato,  and  Spencer  respecting  arguments 
involving  the  infinite,  11-19  ;  doctrine  of  perception  and  intuition 
stated,  15;  discussed,  20-28;  personality  does  not  involve  finitude, 
25,  26. 

II.  Art.  I.  April  1874.    The  Foundations  of  Theology  Sure : 

Native  instincts,  including  religious,  a  basis  of  certain  knowledge, 
31-38  ;  error  of  Herbert  Spencer's  analysis  of  religious  sentiment, 
33,  34;  fallacy  of  the  argument  from  continuity,  3G,  37  ;  relativity 
of  knowledge  does  not  destroy  certainty,  39,  40  ;  re-statement  of 
doctrine  concerning  arguments  to  and  from  the  infinite,  40-42 ; 
the  teleologic  argument  not  invalidated  by  relativity  of  knowledge, 
43-48  ;  recapitulation,  43-45  ;  relative  knowledge  implies  absolute 
45,  46  ;  infinite  character  of  the  First  Cause  does  not  render  him 
unknowable,  47,  48  ;  materialism  unthinkable,  48-51  ;  folly  of  Comte's 
argument  for  materialism,  50  ;  moral  sense  implies  liberty,  51  ;  curious 
cluster  of  non-sequiturs  in  Herbert  Spencer,  52,  53  ;  religious  instincts 
showing  man  the  freeborn  child  of  God,  53-56. 

III.  Art.  III.  July  1874.    The  Natural  Foundations  of  Theology : 

Boundlessness  of  the  knowable,  58,  59  ;  distinction  between  con- 
scious perception  and  conscious  affection  by  truth  not  perceived,  59, 
60  ;  reality  of  human  sight,  and  of  the  law  of  duty,  61,  62  ;  exposi- 
tion of  Gen.  ii.  4.-iii.  24  ;  Luke  x.  30;  Rom.  iii.  25.  26,  62,  63;  the 
morphological  argument,  63-72;  extreme  and  mean  ratio,  63-67; 
Agassiz's  Introduction,  68  ;  symmetry  and  rhythm,  69;  number,  and 
other  a  priori  ideas  suggested  by  the  Cosmos,71  ;  general  morphologic 
argument,  72  ;  the  teleologic  argument,  72-80  ;  growth,  a  building, 
73,  74;  inscrutability  of  divine  purposes,  75  ;  design  implies  no  fini- 
tude, 76;  Diderot's  doctrine  of  chance,  77;  recapitulation,  79,  80. 


iv  CONTENTS. 

IV.    Art.  I.  Oct.  1874.    The  Testimony  of  Organic  Life : 

Modern  science  presents  no  new  problems  to  philosophy,  81,  82; 
vitality  not  correlated  with  force,  83,  84  ;  and  evidencing  spiritual 
realities,  84  ;  the  adaptation  of  instincts  to  the  organization,  and  to 
circumstances,  85-94  ;  the  bee,  85-87  ;  selection  of  food,  88  ;  mam- 
malia, 89,  90  ;  sexual  selection,  91-93  ;  political  economy,  93,  94  ;  the 
place  of  testimony  among  the  foundations  of  faith,  9G-103  ;  the  witness 
borne  by  saints,  95  ;  spirits  of  the  departed,  96  ;  organic  matter  in 
unstable  chemical  ecpulibrium,  97,  98  ;  inspiration,  98,  99;  variations 
in  spiritual  state,  100;  feeling  necessary  to  perception,  100,101; 
revelation,  102,  106. 

V.    Art.  I.  Jan.  1875.    The  Natural  Sources  of  Theology  : 

Recapitulation  of  the  positive  side  of  the  other  articles,  105-122; 
intellectual  intuitions,  105-108;  the  affections  and  sentiments,  4-6 ; 
the  ethical  judgments,  110,  111  :  the  manifestation  of  intellect  in  the 
Cosmos,  112-114;  the  manifestation  of  purpose,  115;  the  adaptation 
of  instincts  to  organization,  115,  116;  the  universe  a  work  of  art, 
116-119  ;  the  doctrine  of  the  unknowable,  120  ;  the  testimony  of  the 
church,  and  revealed  religion,  121,  122. 

VI.    Art.  III.  April  1875.    The  First  Chapter  of  Genesis : 

Professor  Benj.  Peirce's  view  of  the  Elohistic  account  of  Creation, 
as  a  prophetic  or  illuminated  expansion  of  the  one  thought,  that  God 
created  all  things,  123-139;  extreme  antiquity  of  the  writing,  126; 
God  the  creator  of  matter,  127  ;  and  of  its  forces,  127,  128  ;  origin 
of  the  poetical  refrain,  misinterpreted  as  a  statement  of  time  employed, 
128  ;  God  made  the  heavens,  129  ;  and  the  earth,  129  ;  and  adapted 
their  relations  to  each  other,  129  ;  he  made  the  marine  and  terrestrial 
plants  and  animals,  130;  placed  man  at  the  head  of  all,  130;  and 
caused  the  ascending  series  of  creations  to  come  to  a  pause,  130; 
this  logical  division  of  the  work  of  creation  corresponds  to  probable 
chronological  order,  132-134  ;  it  also  accords  with,  and  warns  against, 
the  development  of  atheistic  speculation,  134-139;  and  carries  in 
itself  evidence  of  divine  inspiration,  139. 


THE 


BIBLXOTHECA    SACRA. 


ARTICLE    I. 


THEOLOGY   A  POSSIBLE   SCIENCE. 

BT  REV.  THOMAS    HILL,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  FORMERLY    PRESIDENT    OF    HARVARD 

COLLEGE. 

There  have  been  m  all  ages  speculative  men  whose  philos- 
ophy has  led  them  to  deny  the  possibility  of  the  human  reason 
attaining  to  any  knowledge  of  God.  Sometimes  they  have 
built  on  atheistic  axioms  and  denied  the  existence  of  divine 
things  ;  sometimes  they  have  been  devout  believers,  and  have 
simply  said  that  the  revelations  recorded  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  in  the  New,  are  the  only  possible  sources  of 
religious  knowledge. 

Some  of  the  great  men  of  France  during  the  last  century 
inclined  strongly  to  the  opinion  that  matter,  and  forces  in- 
herent in  it,  constitute  the  sum  total  of  the  universe.  But 
the  fact  was  forced  upon  their  attention  that  in  all  nations 
and  tribes  of  men  there  are  religious  ideas,  more  or  less 
distinct ;  and  also  that  religious  opinions  easily  accepted  by 
children,  cling  with  extreme  tenacity  to  the  adult  mind ;  so 
that  they  themselves  could  with  the  greatest  difficulty  shake 
off  the  belief  of  their  childhood.  They  attempted  to  account 
for  these  ideas  by  declaring  them  the  product  of  the  imagi- 
nation, stimulated  by  terror  at  the  manifestation  of  the  de- 
structive forces  of  nature.  This  ascription  of  the  origin  of 
religion  to  terror  could  have  been  founded  upon  only  a  very 

Vol.  XXXI.  No.  121.  —  January,  1874.  1 


2  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  [Jan. 

careless  survey  of  human  nature.  It  is  quite  true  that  fear, 
or  terror,  frequently  develops  religious  feeling ;  but  it  does 
not  create  religious  ideas ;  and  faith  in  God  is  frequently 
clearest  and  strongest  in  souls  that  have,  through  that  faith, 
become  entirely  devoid  of  fear.  This  French  theory  is  now 
abandoned,  even  by  those  who  hold  to  the  materialistic  phi- 
losophy, and  it  is  admitted  that  terror  is  as  apt  to  destroy  all 
faith  as  to  develop  it. 

In  the  first  half  of  the  present  century  Auguste  Comte 
published  his  system  of  Positive  Philosophy.  It  has  found 
few  disciples  ;  and  the  vagaries  of  Comte's  later  years,  when 
he  became,  as  sober  English  sense  would  declare,  insane  in 
his  worship  of  mankind  in  general,  and  women  in  particular, 
have  weakened  very  much  the  direct  power  of  his  name. 
Yet  his  writings  at  one  time  exerted  a  great  influence  ;  and 
some  of  the  clearest  English  and  French  writers  of  our  day 
owe  to  him,  indirectly,  more  than  they,  perhaps  are,  them- 
selves aware. 

Comte's  view  of  religious  ideas  is  that  they  are  an  illusion 
of  childhood,  outgrown  under  proper  education ;  and  replaced, 
at  first  by  metaphysical  notions  concerning  physical  causes, 
afterward  by  an  entire  suspension  of  judgment  in  regard  to 
all  questions  concerning  the  origin,  or  causes,  of  phenomena. 
Sensible  phenomena  themselves  are,  in  his  philosophy,  the 
only  known,  or  knowable,  things ;  and  he  pushes  this  doctrine 
so  far  as,  in  one  direction,  to  make  the  mathematics  merely 
an  experimental  science  of  measurement ;  and,  in  another, 
to  forbid  astronomy  to  meddle  with  the  motions  of  the  fixed 
stars,  —  because  that  motion  is  not  sensible  to  the  unaided 
eye.  Things  manifest  to  the  senses  are  the  only  proper 
objects  of  human  thought,  and  the  only  possible  materials  of 
knowledge.  The  sole  work  of  science  is,  therefore,  to  group 
observations  in  such  wise  as  to  record  them  in  the  briefest 
possible  formulae ;  the  accuracy  of  which  is  to  be  tested  by 
seeing  whether  they  embrace  also  phenomena  afterwards 
observed. 
According  to  Comte's  pure  doctrine,  therefore,  he  and  his 


1874.]  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  3 

followers  are  debarred  from  either  affirming  or  denying  any 
thing  concerning  spiritual  and  religious  matters.  They 
must  hold  their  judgment  in  perfect  suspense  on  such  points, 
with  supreme  and  unaffected  indifference.  It  is  manifest 
that  this  is  an  impossible  feat,  considering  the  vital  interest 
of  the  questions ;  it  would  be  holding  the  mind  in  unstable 
equilibrium,  amid  strong  contending  forces.  The  positive 
philosophy  is,  therefore,  a  merely  ideal  state,  in  which  the 
author  of  the  scheme  could  never  have  remained  longer  than 
a  few  minutes  at  a  time.  And,  in  fact,  we  find  in  his  first 
great  book,  in  which  the  doctrine  is  expanded,  that  he  is 
greatly  inconsistent  with  his  principles ;  instead  of  leaving 
spiritual  and  theological  opinions  to  themselves,  as  unproved 
and  unprovable,  he,  in  several  places,  attacks  them  warmly, 
and  endeavors  to  disprove  them  ;  that  is,  not  only  to  show  that 
a  theologian  cannot  prove  the  existence  of  the  soul,  and  of  its 
Creator ;  but  that  he,  Comte,  can  prove  their  non-existence. 
In  this  attempt  to  prove  a  negative,  and  the  negative  of  a  prop- 
osition which,  according  to  his  own  doctrine,  transcends  the 
possibilities  of  knowledge,  he  makes,  of  course,  a  very  sorry 
display  of  logic.  His  proof  of  the  non-existence  of  the  soul 
is  simply  this :  The  body  perishes  when  food,  light,  and  heat 
are  furnished  in  excess,  or  too  scantily  ;  therefore  the  body 
is  moved  solely  by  material  forces,  and  a  soul  is  superfluous. 
By  this  argument  he  forsakes  his  positive  ground,  to  enter 
the  theological,  and  to  emerge  in  the  metaphysical.  But  his 
attempts  illustrate  the  impossibility  of  his  holding  his  mind 
in  the  attitude  demanded  by  his  philosophy  —  the  attitude  of 
supreme  indifference.  If  the  master  thus  fails,  the  disciple 
cannot  hope  to  succeed.  Every  attempt,  like  that  of  the 
positive  philosophy,  to  ignore  theology,  will  end  either  in  a 
dogmatic  atheism,  or  in  a  return  to  some  form  of  faith. 

The  validity  of  religious  knowledge  is,  at  the  present  day, 
assailed  on  the  ground  that  man  is  a  finite  being,  that  his 
faculties  cannot  lay  hold  of  the  infinite,  that  his  thought  is 
necessarily  limited,  is  possible  only  within  narrow  conditions, 
and  that  the  attributes  of  the  Infinite  and  Absolute  Cause  of 


4  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  [Jan. 

the  universe  must  forever  be  unknown  and  unknowable. 
Sir  William  Hamilton,  of  Edinburgh,  a  devout  Christian 
believer,  has  had  a  large  influence  in  making  these  assaults 
possible,  by  furnishing  some  of  the  metaphysical  weapons 
employed  in  them.  In  the  thirty-eighth  lecture  of  his  post- 
humous volume  on  metaphysics  he  announces  what  he  calls 
the  Law  of  the  Conditioned.  His  language  is  this  :  "All  that 
is  conceivable  in  thought  lies  between  two  extremes,  which, 
as  contradictory  of  each  other,  cannot  both  be  true  ;  but  of 
which,  as  mutual  contradictories,  one  must."  He  illustrates 
this  by  space.  "  It  is  plain,"  he  says,  "  that  space  must  either 
be  bounded  or  not  bounded."  "  But  though  space  must  be 
necessarily  either  finite  or  infinite,  we  are  able  to. conceive 
the  possibility  neither  of  its  finitude  nor  of  its  infinity."  He 
afterwards  says,  "  We  have  found  the  maximum  of  space  in- 
comprehensible ;  can  we  comprehend  its  minimum  ?  This  is 
equally  impossible."  "  Let  us  take  a  portion  of  space  how- 
ever small,  we  can  never  conceive  it  as  the  smallest,"  and 
"  we  can  as  little  represent  to  ourselves  the  possibility  of  an 
infinite  divisibility  of  any  extended  entity."  Speaking  of 
the  like  puzzle  concerning  time,  he  adds  :  "One  is  necessarily 
true,  but  neither  can  be  conceived  possible."  In  this  con- 
nection Hamilton  alludes  to  the  famous  arguments  of  Zeno, 
to  disprove  the  possibility  of  motion;  calling  them,  "argu- 
ments which,  at  least,  show  that  motion,  however  certain 
as  a  fact,  cannot  be  conceived  possible,  as  it  involves  a 
contradiction." 

Further  on,  he  recapitulates  thus  :  "  The  sum,  therefore, 
of  what  I  have  now  stated  is,  that  the  conditioned  is  that 
which  is  alone  conceivable  or  cogitable ;  the  unconditioned 
that  which  is  inconceivable  or  uncogitable.  The  conditioned, 
or  the  thinkable,  lies  between  two  extremes  or  poles  ;  and 
these  extremes  or  poles  are  each  of  them  unconditioned,  each 
of  them  inconceivable,  each  of  them  exclusive  or  contradictory 
of  the  other."  "  One  of  these  poles  is  the  absolute,  the  other 
the  infinite,  and  each  can  be  conceived  as  a  negation  of  the 
thinkable.  In  other  words,  of  the  absolute  and  of  the  infinite 
we  have  no  conception  at  all." 


1874.]  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  5 

Sir  William  Hamilton  maintains  that  this  is  the  orthodox 
doctrine.  "  We  must  believe,"  he  says,  "  in  the  infinity  of 
God,  but  the  Infinite  God  cannot  by  us  be  comprehended  or 
conceived.  We  know  God  according  to  the  finitude  of  our 
faculties,  but  we  believe  much  that  we  are  incompetent 
properly  to  know."  Once  more,  he  objects  to  those  who  say 
that  although  the  infinite  is  not  comprehended,  it  is  appre- 
hended ;  this  he  thinks  is  absurd,  it  is  saying  that  the  infinite 
can  be. known,  but  only  known  as  finite. 

It  will  be  observed  that  this  great  metaphysician  devoutly 
recognizes  the  existence  of  the  Infinite  God  ;  but  claims  that 
recognition  as  an  act  of  faith  or  belief,  not  of  knowledge. 
We  must  believe,  he  says,  in  the  infinity  of  God ;  we  know 
him  according  to  the  finitude  of  our  faculties  ;  but  we  believe 
much  that  we  are  incompetent  to  know. 

Hamilton  himself,  therefore,  did  not  deduce  irreligious  or 
atheistic  corollaries  from  his  law  of  the  conditioned;  and  in 
his  strong  assertion  that  the  infinite  is  inconceivable  and  un- 
thinkable, he  could  only  have  meant  that  the  mind  forms  no 
concept  or  image  of  the  infinite.  That  he  did  not  mean  to  say 
that  the  existence  of  the  infinite  is  inconceivable,  is  apparent 
from  his  own  statement  that  we  must  believe  in  the  infinity 
of  God.  His  doctrine  of  the  inconceivability  of  the  infinite 
no  more  stood  in  the  way  of  his  recognition  of  the  existence 
of  the  infinite  than  his  assertion  of  the  inconceivability  of 
the  possibility  of  motion  stood  in  the  way  of  his  acknowledging 
the  fact  of  motion.  As,  however,  Hamilton  states  and  ex- 
pands his  law,  and  applies  it  in  a  subsequent  lecture  to  the 
doctrine  of  causality,  the  law  seems  to  be  very  defective  and 
incomplete. 

Let  us  begin,  as  our  author  does,  with  space.  Universal 
space  must  be  either  bounded  or  unbounded.  We  can  form 
no  conception  of  space  bounded — space  absolute,  without 
space  outside  of  it.  Neither  can  we  form  any  conception  of 
space  infinite,  however  much  we  expand  our  conception  of 
space  indefinite.  But  what  is  meant  by  saying  that  between 
these  two  poles,  space  absolute  and  space  infinite,  both  un- 


6  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  [Jan. 

thinkable,  lies  space  thinkable?  Or,  take  the  other  extreme. 
We  cannot  conceive  of  an  absolute  minimum  of  space, 
neither  can  we  conceive  of  an  infinite  subdivision  of 
space.  But  what  is  meant  by  saying  that  between  these  two 
poles  of  an  absolutely  infinitesimal  infinitesimal,  and  an 
infinitely  infinitesimal  infinitesimal,  botli  unthinkable,  lies 
the  thinkable  of  space  ?  Had  Hamilton  lived  to  revise  his 
work,  he  must  have  modified  in  some  way  his  annunciation 
of  his  law.  From  the  examples  of  space  and  time,  he  seems 
rather  to  have  meant :  That  the  thinkable  lies  between 
two  unthinkable  extremes ;  that  each  of  these  extremes  con- 
sists of  two  poles,  the  absolute,  which  is  unthinkable,  and 
the  infinite  or  infinitesimal,  also  unthinkable ;  but  that  one 
of  each  of  these  pairs  of  unthinkables  nnrst  be  true  —  our 
choice  at  each  extreme  lies  between  two  unthinkables. 

Our  distinguished  author  is  somewhat  unguarded,  also,  in 
saying  that  the  absolute  and  the  infinite  are  equally  unthink- 
able. Take,  for  example,  the  minimum  of  space.  The 
absolute  minimum  is  unthinkable,  not  merely  because  you 
can  form  no  picture  or  concept  of  it,  but  also  because  you 
perceive  that  it  belongs  to  the  nature  of  space  to  be  suscep- 
tible of  division.  On  the  other  hand,  the  result  of  an  infinite 
subdivision  of  space  is  unthinkable  only  because  we  can  form 
no  picture  or  image  of  the  operation.  Yet  the  imagination 
can  start  a  process  of  division  which  reason  can  demonstrate 
would  accomplish  the  infinite  subdivision.  Uniform  motion, 
'  for  example,  is  constantly  performing  it.  A  locomotive,  let 
us  say,  is  running  at  the  rate  of  twenty-two  and  a  half  miles 
an  hour.  It  passes  a  mile-post,  and  is  distant  one  mile  from 
the  next.  In  eighty  seconds  it  is  but  half  a  mile  distant ;  in 
forty  seconds  more,  it  is  a  quarter  of  a  mile  distant ;  in 
twenty  seconds  more,  only  an  eighth  of  a  mile ;  in  ten 
seconds  more,  only  twenty  rods  ;  in  five  seconds  more,  it  is 
only  ten  rods  from  the  next  mile-post.  Thus,  the  distance 
before  the  next  post  is  continually  halved,  and  each  halving 
occupies  but  half  the  time  of  the  preceding.  Hence  the 
next   five   seconds  will   accomplish  the   infinite  subdivision 


1874]  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  7 

botli  of  the  space  and  of  the  time,  and  the  infinitesimal 
portion  of  each  will  be  zero.  And  here  arises  a  new  contra- 
diction to  illustrate  Hamilton's  main  thought — the  contra- 
diction that  an  infinite  addition  of  these  nothings  makes 
somethings,  viz.  a  mile,  and  two  minutes  forty  seconds. 

The  infinite  divisibility  of  space,  therefore,  although  not 
conceivable  in  the  imagination  as  a  completed  picture,  is 
conceivable  as  the  result  of  a  clearly  conceived  mode  of  sub- 
division. As  regards  this  pair  of  poles,  the  infinite  is  not 
inconceivable  in  the  same  sense  as  the  absolute. 

Let  us  glance  at  the  other  pair.  Absolute  space  —  space 
bounded  and  finished,  without  space  outside  of  it  —  is  incon- 
ceivable in  every  sense  ;  while  infinite  space  is  inconceivable 
only  in  the  sense  that  it  cannot  be  imaged  ;  it  is  not  incon- 
ceivable that  space  is  infinite  ;  the  intellect,  indeed,  accepts 
its  infinity  from  the  inconceivability  of  space  absolute.  The 
attempted  concept  of  the  absolute  in  space,  whether  minimum 
or  maximum  is  a  positive  shock  to  the  imagination ;  its 
inconceivability  is  glaring  to  the  mental  eye.  But  the  attempt 
to  form  a  concept  of  the  infinite  and  the  infinitesimal  gives 
no  such  shock,  but  only  a  sense  of  the  weakness  of  our 
powers. 

When  Hamilton  approaches  the  question  of  liberty  and 
necessity,  he  introduces,  apparently  unconsciously,  another 
modification  of  his  law  of  the  conditioned.  In  his  statements 
of  the  law,  as  quoted  above,  he  makes  the  law  of  noncontra- 
diction supreme.  Space  is,  he  says,  either  bounded  or  not 
bounded  ;  you  cannot  call  it  both.  All  that  is  conceivable 
lies  between  two  contradictories,  both  unthinkable ;  one  of 
which  must  be  true,  the  other  must  be  false.  But  in  the 
matter  of  liberty  and  necessity,  he  affirms  both  of  two  con- 
tradictories ;  he  therein  only  follows  the  geometers,  who, 
in  dealing  with  infinites  and  infinitesimals,  frequently  affirm 
both  of  two  contradictories,  and  are  led  by  each  affirmation 
to  correct  results. 

Hamilton's  Law  of  the  Conditioned,  in  the  form  given 
above  in  his  own  words,  seems  not   altogether  intelligible 


8  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  [Jan. 

The  subject  is  abstruse,  and  an  attempt  to  give  the  wider 
and  more  accurate  generalization,  of  which  his  is  but  a  part, 
may  be  an  equal  failure. 

We,  embosomed  in  the  infinite,  are  ourselves  finite.  Every 
faculty  and  function,  corporeal,  intellectual,  spiritual,  is 
limited  in  its  sphere  —  bounded  on  all  sides  by  the  infinitely 
great  or  the  infinitely  small.  By  the  ingenuity  of  the 
imagination  and  the  skill  of  the  intellect,  we  may  enlarge 
to  a  certain  extent  the  boundaries  of  our  finitude  ;  but  we 
at  length  meet  the  inevitable  barrier.  Take  the  eye,  as  an 
illustration,  in  its  range  of  focal  adjustment;  it  can  see 
distinctly,  only  when  the  given  object  is  neither  too  near  nor 
too  distant.  By  ingenious  devices  we  extend  its  range  to 
greater  distances  by  the  telescope,  and  to  closer  examination 
by  the  microscope  ;  but  we  can  see  that  only  which  is  within 
the  reach  of  these  instruments,  which  have  limits  as  fixed  as 
those  of  the  eye.  Analogous  limitations  hedge  in  eacli  of 
the  senses  and  bodily  functions;  and  such  limitations  restrain 
also  the  incorporeal  powers. 

Take,  as  an  illustration,  the  purely  intellectual  perception 
of  form  in  space.  The  native  powers  of  the  mind  are  com- 
petent to  discuss  sundry  finite  relations  of  space,  of  distance, 
and  direction  ;  and  out  of  this  native  power  a  sort  of  natural 
geometry  springs  by  which  men  guide  themselves  in  all  their 
ordinary  dealings  with  matter  and  motion.  Then  (by  in- 
genious devices  of  the  intellect  and  of  the  imagination)  the 
notation  or  written  language  of  the  mathematics,  in  its  simpler 
and  antique  forms,  or  in  the  more  subtile  and  powerful  forms 
of  modern  days,  is  brought  to  aid  our  investigation.  We 
thus  sec  more  clearly  the  relations  of  finite  space  ;  but  we 
also,  through  these  intellectual  lenses,  see  the  indefinitely 
small  and  the  indefinitely  large,  and  learn  truths  which  hold 
for  the  infinite  and  the  infinitesimal.  Neither  the  infinitely 
large  nor  the  infinitely  small  is  brought  under  our  power 
of  conception  ;  but  in  certain  cases  the  relations  between 
infinites  or  infinitesimals  are  completely  within  the  power 
of  our  reason,  and  the  results  of  those  relations  completely 


1874.]  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  9 

within  (he  grasp  of  our  imagination ;  as  was  just  shown  in 
the  division  of  space  by  a  uniform  motion. 

The  general  rule  for  proceeding  in  cases  of  the  infinite  or 
infinitesimal,  may,  perhaps,  be  thus  stated.  Starting  with 
finite  quantities  we  obtain  some  general  formula  expressing 
their  relation  ;  then,  in  that  general  formula,  we  suppose 
one  or  more  of  the  quantities  to  become  zero,  or  infinity.  If 
this  makes  the  formula  become  infinite,  or  of  indeterminate 
value,  the  result  which  we  have  attained  may  be  merely 
negative  and  useless.  But  if  the  formula  remains  determi- 
nate and  finite,  then  our  result  gives  us  a  positive  knowledge 
of  the  relations  of  infinites  or  infinitesimals.  We  cannot 
begin  with  the  infinite  and  reason  to  the  finite ;  nor  can  we 
through  the  indefinite  proceed  from  the  finite  to  the  infinite ; 
but  we  can  proceed  from  the  relations  of  finites  to  the  rela- 
tions of  infinites. 

What  is  thus  true  of  space,  the  simplest  of  all  objects  of 
intellectual  perception,  holds  true,  in  its  degree,  with  regard 
to  higher  objects.  The  infinite  and  the  infinitesimal  cannot 
be  brought  into  the  sphere  of  direct  conception  ;  but  dis- 
tinctly conceived  relations  between  finites  are  frequently 
traced  into  the  indefinite,  in  such  a  manner  that  we  can 
show  that  the  relations  will  still  hold  in  the  infinite ;  and 
sometimes  that  the  result  of  those  relations,  even  in  the  in- 
finite, is  finite  and  conceivable. 

For  this  purpose  peculiar  canons  of  logic  are  brought  into 
play.  The  ordinary  syllogistic  test  must  fail  whenever  we 
approach  the  infinite,  in  either  direction,  magnitude  or  "  par- 
vitude."  The  syllogism  requires  some  relation  of  quantity 
between  the  subject  and  its  predicate,  but  that  relation  is 
wanting  when  the  subject  is  infinite.  Propositions  concern- 
ing the  infinite  require  a  special  analysis  in  order  to  determine 
how  much  of  their  apparent  meaning  is  real  and  trustworthy. 
This  especial  analysis  for  the  determination  of  indetermi- 
nates,  starts  with  a  better  meaning  of  the  term  infinite  than 
that  assigned  by  Hamilton.  The  infinite  is  not  merely  the 
negation  of  limits  ;    it  is  the  affirmation  of  extent  beyond 

Vol.  XXXI.  No.  121.  2 


10  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  [Jan. 

limits.  The  infinite  in  space,  for  example,  is  not  simply 
boundlessness,  but  boundless  space.  It  is  not  the  simple 
inability  to  assign  a  stopping  place ;  it  is  an  ability  always  to 
go  further ;  as  much  further,  always,  as  you  please.  This 
is  one  error  of  the  Edinburgh  master  and  of  his  disciples, 
they  look  at  the  negative  side  of  infinity  and  forget  the  posi- 
tive ;  and  thus  ascribe  the  notion  to  our  weakness  and  not 
to  our  strength.  Herbert  Spencer,  who  yields  far  too  much 
to  the  doctrine  of  Hamilton,  nevertheless  points  out  this 
error  with  admirable  clearness.  Even  the  closer  followers 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  conditioned  betray,  however,  at  every 
step  in  their  discussion  of  the  infinite,  a  dim  perception  that 
there  is  a  positive  side  to  infinity.  It  is  not  merely  our 
inability  to  grasp  the  infinite,  which  marks  the  nature  of  our 
attempt  to  conceive  it ;  that  would  indeed  come  from  our 
finitudc  and  leave  us  nothing  to  say  concerning  the  infinite. 
Such  may  be  the  condition  of  an  idiot,  or  of  the  lower  animals. 
But  when  running  through  the  indefinite,  we  not  only  see 
that  we  cannot  reach  the  infinite ;  we  see  that  we  can  run 
through  the  indefinite,  as  long  as  we  please. 

Now  this  is  as  true  of  spiritual  things  as  of  geometrical. 
Take,  as  an  example,  this  very  form  of  intellectual  power, 
the  ability  to  see  the  relations  of  space.  If  we  attempt  to 
rise  from  the  contemplation  of  the  merest  instinctive  power 
to  move  in  a  straight  line  toward  a  desired  object,  up  through 
various  grades  of  geometrical  power,  to  the  highest  mathema- 
tician ;  if  we  then  attempt  to  rise  to  the  conception  of  cheru- 
bim, excelling,  in  this  geometric  ability,  Hamilton  of  Dublin, 
as  far  as  he  excelled  Hamilton  of  Edinburgh ;  we  see  not 
only  that  this  will  never  bring  us  to  the  conception  of  that 
Infinite  Intellect  which  comprehends  all  the  movements  and 
forms  of  the  universe,  as  but  a  fragment  of  his  knowledge ; 
but  also  what  is,  one  might  almost  say,  more  important,  we 
see  that  we  can  always  be  extending  our  own  knowledge  of 
the  laws  of  space,  and  always  forming  clearer  conceptions 
of  still  higher  geometrical  power.  This  is  a  positive  approach 
toward  that  unattainable  end,  the  conception  of  infinite  geo- 


1874.]  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE   SCIENCE.  11 

metrical  knowledge.  We  can  form  no  conception  of  such 
infinite  knowledge ;  yet  we  believe  in  its  existence,  and  can 
form  a  definite  conception  of  its  relation  to  other  infinites ; 
we  can  see,  for  example,  that  to  such  knowledge  all  problems 
not  in  their  own  nature  insoluble  have  been  solved  from  all 
eternity.  And  this  is  no  negative  fruit  of  weakness,  but  a 
positive  fruit  of  power  ;  a  power  that  prophesies  never-ending 
growth  for  the  human  mind. 

Our  faculties,  being  finite,  must  find  their  only  field  in  the 
finite ;  and  in  finite  results  of  the  relations  of  the  infinites ; 
we  can  relieve  ourselves  of  the  indeterminateness  of  infinites, 
if  at  all,  only  by  a  peculiar  analysis,  starting  from  the  posi- 
tive, not  the  negative  side  of  infinity.  It  may  also  happen, 
when  infinity  is  in  question,  that  two  apparently  contradic- 
tory and  mutually  exclusive  propositions  are  both  true ;  we 
can  by  peculiar  analysis,  demonstrate  the  truth  of  each,  and 
yet  be  unable  to  conceive  of  the  mode  of  their  reconciliation. 

As  an  illustration  of  this  last  point,  it  is  easy  to  demon- 
strate that  a  curve  bends  at  every  point,  and  does  not  bend 
at  any  point ;  these  mutually  contradictory  propositions  are 
both  true,  and  each  is  fruitful  of  sound  results.  Or  we  may 
take  an  example  of  the  infinitely  large  ;  the  hyperbolic  spiral 
starts  in  the  axis,  and  yet  starts  in  the  asymptote,  and  these 
two  straight  lines  are  parallel,  and  at  any  distance  apart. 
Hamilton  gives  us  a  spiritual  example ;  he  believes  in  free-will 
in  man,  and  in  the  foreknowledge  of  God ;  the  mathemati- 
cians, as  we  have  just  shown,  cannot  consistently  charge  him 
with  absurdity  in  so  doing.  Hamilton  accomplishes  the 
practical  reconciliation  of  these  apparent  contradictories  by 
remanding  them  both,  out  of  the  sphere  of  reason  into  the 
sphere  of  faith ;  just  as  his  great  leader,  Kant  (whose  antin- 
omies of  reason  probably  suggested  the  law  of  the  condi- 
tioned), referred  the  ideas  of  God,  freedom  and  immortality, 
which  he  thought  could  not  be  established  by  pure  reason, 
to  the  sphere  of  the  practical  reason. 

But  this  distinction,  which  Kant  and  Hamilton  draw, 
between  faith  and  practical   reason  on  the  one  hand,  and 


12  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  [Jan. 

pure  reason  or  the  cognitive  faculty  on  the  other,  cannot  be 
maintained.  It  is  in  the  subject-matter  of  our  thought  that 
the  real  distinction  lies ;  not  in  the  faculty  by  which  we 
apprehend  it.  Moreover,  the  antinomies  into  which  we  run 
in  approaching  the  infinite,  or  other  walls  of  mystery  which 
limit  our  sphere  of  clearer  thought,  are  in  no  case  so  near 
as  it  at  first  sight  appears.  The  same  power  which  has 
approached  them  in  one  case,  and  won  new  fields  for  the 
domain  of  science  from  lands  formerly  supposed  to  be  with- 
out the  wall,  finds  them  receding  in  all  other  directions 
before  a  fearless  but  reverent  step. 

In  the  pure  mathematics  these  limits  of  the  imagination 
are  three,  —  the  infinitely  small,  the  infinitely  large,  and  the 
imaginary,  —  the  word  imaginary,  in  mathematics,  signifying 
a  third  unimaginable.  By  the  skill  of  analysts  all  forms  of 
this  third  unimaginable  in  space  and  time,  that  is  in  pure 
mathematics,  are  reduced  to  one,  which  may  be  illustrated 
in  two  ways :  first,  as  a  time  which  not  coinciding  with  a 
given  epoch,  is  yet  neither  before  nor  after  it ;  secondly,  as 
a  point,  which  not  being  in  a  given  plane,  is  yet  on  neither 
side  of  it.  The  metaphysician  has  not  thus  analyzed  the 
forms  of  absurdity  or  inconceivability,  in  other  departments 
of  thought,  but  it  is  manifest  that  the  infinites  enter  to  be- 
wilder other  students  than  those  of  geometry. 

Our  nature  is  not  wholly  finite,  we  cling  to  the  infinite  in 
all  our  affections ;  and  even  reason  inevitably  leads  us  to 
perceive  that  there  is  an  infinite.  It  is  true  that  we  cannot 
deduce  the  existence  of  the  infinite  by  syllogistic  inference 
from  data  given  in  our  finite  consciousness.  Yet  some  of 
the  very  philosophers  who,  like  Kant  and  Hamilton,  have 
most  strongly  asserted  the  impotence  of  reason  to  demon- 
strate the  being  of  God,  have  nevertheless  clung  most  strongly 
to  their  faith  in  God.  They  assert  the  impossibility  of  con- 
ceiving the  infinite,  yet  they  cling  to  their  belief  in  the 
infinity  of  space,  the  eternity  of  time,  and  an  Infinite 
Personality  as  the  first  cause  of  all ;  a  triplet  of  contra- 
dictions.    Why  this  ineradicable  belief?    Not  from  the  weak- 


1874.]  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE   SCIENCE.  13 

ness  of  our  intellect,  but  from  its  power ;  it  is  because  we 
not  only  see  no  limit  to  being,  but  see  that  there  is  no  limit ; 
that  there  is  being  beyond  every  limit. 

The  mathematicians  in  their  dealing  with  the  infinite  have 
learned,  not  only  theoretically  but  practically,  that  when 
infinity  appears  in  the  premises  no  finite  conclusion  can  be 
drawn.  They  invariably  conduct  their  reasoning  on  finites, 
and  the  relations  of  finites ;  and  afterwards  substituting  the 
infinite  for  the  finite  in  the  results,  find  finite  relations  be- 
tween the  infinites.  But  the  metaphysicians  dealing  with 
ontological  problems  have  seldom  attained  this  practical 
wisdom.  From  the  days  of  Plato  down  to  the  latest  philoso- 
pher of  our  own  century,  the  metaphysicians  of  every  school, 
religious  and  irreligious,  have  been  apt  to  start  with  axioms 
and  definitions  concerning  the  infinite  or  the  inconceivable, 
and  to  deduce  by  syllogistic  reasoning  important  parts  of 
their  systems.  This  process  has  naturally  and  inevitably 
led  to  inconsistent,  clashing  results.  Each  system  of  meta- 
physics has  embraced  truths  and  falsehoods,  which  no  man 
has  succeeded  in  separating ;  because  every  man  has  pro- 
ceeded, more  or  less  frequently  and  constantly,  on  the  wrong 
method,  attempting  to  deduce  finite  consequences  from  in- 
finite premises  ;  arguing  from  the  infinite,  and  not  toward  it. 
The  example  of  the  geometers  ought  by  this  time  to  have 
taught  them  that,  while  we  can  go  through  indefinites  towards 
infinites,  we  cannot  retrace  our  steps. 

The  metaphysician  says  that  the  march  through  indefinites 
can  never  reach  the  infinite.  But  that  is  an  error.  The 
march  through  indefinites  can  reach  the  infinite,  provided 
the  march  be  always  at  an  accelerating  pace.  And  although 
we  cannot  conceive  the  infinite,  as  such,  we  can  conceive, 
and  conceive  correctly,  the  result  of  this  attainment  of  the 
infinite,  when  the  result  is  finite.  Nor  is  it  impossible  that 
we  should  thus  get  at  two  finite  results,  each  true,  and  yet 
contradictories ;  their  infinite  distance  preventing  us  from 
reconciling  them;  in  which  case  we  must  accept  both,  in 
spite  of  their  apparent  contradiction. 


14  THEOLOGY   A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  [Jan. 

This  is  unquestionably  true  in  mathematics,  and  true  also 
in  metaphysics.  Philosophers  frequently  prove,  in  a  perfectly 
satisfactory  way,  each  of  two  contradictory  theorems.  If  we 
should  take  these  questions  up  from  their  finite  sides,  looking, 
as  Lessing  says,  to  the  key  of  common  sense  to  see  what 
answers  we  ought  to  get  to  the  problems,  we  might,  by 
peculiar  processes  of  investigation,  remove  the  indeterminate- 
ness  of  some,  explain  the  contradictory  nature  of  others, 
and  thus  increase  the  field  of  certainty.  Some  of  those 
questions  which  we  did  not  thus  settle,  we  might  demonstrate 
to  be  in  their  nature  insoluble  ;  as  the  mathematicians  have 
shown  for  the  extraction  of  surd  roots,  and  the  squaring  of 
the  circle  ;  or  in  their  nature  unimaginable,  like  time  neither 
before  nor  after  a  given  epoch  ;  and  thus  we  should  remove 
them  from  the  sphere  of  controversy. 

Kant's  distinction  between  the  pure  and  the  practical 
reason,  Hamilton's  between  the  cognitive  faculties  and  faith, 
Mansel's  between  speculative  and  regulative  truths,  are  all 
untenable.  The  two  sets  of  our  faculties  and  the  two  sets 
of  truths,  thus  distinguished,  are  substantially  one,  and  their 
separation  is  an  uncalled  for  concession  to  that  school  of 
philosophers  who  would  bound  our  knowledge  by  that  which 
can  be  logically  deduced  from  the  testimony  of  the  senses. 
Time  and  space  lie  as  distinctly  out  of  the  sphere  of  sensation 
as  any  spiritual  entities  can ;  and  if  we  resist  Comte's  defini- 
tion of  the  mathematics  (degrading  them,  as  Cicero  com- 
plained that  the  Romans  did,  to  the  mere  art  of  measuring), 
if  we  show  that  this  definition  cannot  account  for  the  action 
of  the  human  mind,  nor  explain  the  triumphs  of  either  ancient 
or  modern  geometers ;  we  may  also  resist  Mill's  definition 
of  the  mind  as  a  congeries  of  the  possibilities  of  sensation, 
and  Spencer's  as  the  state  of  consciousness,  and  Spinoza's  as 
the  sum  of  our  thoughts ;  show  that  such  definitions  cramp 
and  pervert  both  psychology  and  ontology ;  and  refuse  to 
make  the  smallest  concession  to  any  philosophy  that  would 
make  mind  a  mere  modification  of  matter.  The  idealistic 
extreme  were  far  more  rational. 


1874.]  THEOLOGY  A   POSSIBLE    SCIENCE.  15 

The  fundamental  power  of  the  mind  is  its  power  of  per- 
ception ;  its  power  of  recognizing  objects  of  thought  and 
thinking  about  them.  The  science  of  logic  explaining  certain 
of  the  processes  of  thinking,  does  not  and  cannot  offer  any 
explanation  of  the  fact  of  perception.  What  I  see,  I  must 
believe  that  I  see ;  and  my  only  power  of  criticism,  is  the 
power  to  separate  clearly  the  perception  from  the  related  or 
dependent  truths  which  I  may  by  unconscious  and  rapid 
inference  (i.e.  perception  of  relation),  have  drawn  from  it. 
The  objects  of  direct  perception  may  be  divided  into  five 
classes  :  the  first  containing  time  and  space  ;  the  second,  the 
external  world ;  the  third,  our  fellow  men ;  the  fourth,  our 
own  internal  sphere  of  consciousness  ;  and  the  fifth,  the  inef- 
fable B^irst  Cause.  Our  perceptions  of  these  five  objects  differ 
in  clearness ;  and  in  the  fruitfulness  of  inferences  which 
may  be  drawn  from  them  ;  but  it  is,  so  to  speak,  the  same 
mental  power  of  sight  which  reveals  to  us  each  of  the  five 
classes  of  objects,  and  it  is  the  same  power  of  seeing  relations 
that  draws  its  inferences  from  what  is  seen  in  the  objects. 
Theology  stands  on  a  different  basis  from  physics,  because 
its  object,  or  subject-matter  is  different,  rather  than  because 
it  requires  the  exercise  of  different  powers  of  mind  in  its 
treatment. 

We  see  space  and  time  by  the  mental  eye,  and  recognize 
their  relations  to  us,  and  ours  to  them.  We  deduce  mag- 
nificently long  trains  of  successful  argument  from  these  per- 
ceptions ;  but  we  find  also  mysteries  absolutely  insoluble, 
even  in  these  simplest  of  all  objects  ;  we  are  forced  to  confess 
after  all  our  ingenuity  in  inventing  calculuses,  that  we  are, 
even  in  geometry,  fenced  in  by  an  impenetrable  wall  of  the 
unknowable.  Not  on  that  account  do  we  consider  the  ac- 
quisition of  geometrical  knowledge  impossible.  But  precisely 
the  same  is  true  concerning  each  one  of  the  five  great  fields 
open  to  human  sight,  including  the  grandest  and  most 
sublime,  that  of  theology. 

We  see  that  there  is,  ever  present,  a  Divine  Cause  of  all 
things,  and  cannot  refuse  to  see  it.     We  recognize  our  re- 


16  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  [Jan. 

lations  to  him,  and  his  to  us,  and  draw  the  most  sublime  and 
cheering  inferences  from  them.  If  it  is  replied  that  he  is 
both  infinite  and  absolute,  and  cannot  stand  related,  the 
answer  is  obvious  ;  that  objection  argues  from  the  infinite  to 
the  finite,  and  cannot  be  sound  ;  it  would  be  justly  parodied 
by  saying  that  space  is  indivisible  and  infinite,  and  cannot 
therefore  stand  related,  and  cannot  furnish  a  basis  for  geom- 
etry. It  is  true  that  the  mysteries  of  the  Divine  Being 
transcend  all  our  powers  of  reason  and  of  imagination.  But 
this  does  not  render  all  knowledge  of  him  impossible,  so  long 
as  we  perceive  his  presence  and  action  ever  about  us,  and 
may  even  reverently  and  gratefully  say  we  see  him,  ever 
present  in  our  souls  and  in  the  world. 

Mansel,  in  his  admirable  Bampton  Lectures,  states  with 
wonderful  clearness  and  force  the  impossibility  of  our  attain- 
ing to  an  exhaustive  knowledge  of  God ;  but  he  not  only 
draws  from  this  feebleness  of  our  faculties  the  just  inference 
that  we  are  to  approach  religious  reasonings  with  great 
caution  and  modesty ;  he  also,  in  several  passages,  seems  to 
deny  our  ability  to  judge  at  all  of  divine  things,  or  to  attribute 
any  meaning  whatever  to  the  terms  in  which  God  is  described 
as  holy,  just,  merciful,  and  true.  In  his  desire,  apparently, 
to  exalt  the  value  of  revealed  religion,  he,  in  these  passages, 
destroys  his  power  to  accept  the  evidences  of  revealed  religion. 
If  we  have  no  knowledge  whatever  of  God,  except  through 
the  scriptures,  how  can  we  judge  whether  the  scriptures 
came  from  God  ? 

Herbert  Spencer  quotes  with  approval  both  Hamilton's 
and  Mansel' s  statements  of  the  impossibility  of  man's  arriving 
at  the  knowledge  of  divine  things,  but  draws  from  the  doctrine 
very  different  conclusions  from  theirs.  As  before  remarked, 
he  points  out  the  error  of  supposing  that  the  infinite  is  simply 
the  not  finite,  the  unthinkable  in  magnitude  or  finitude. 
He  shows  that  we  have  not  merely  the  negative  notion  of 
"  without  bounds  "  ;  but  the  positive  notion  of  "  something 
without  bounds  " ;  that  the  idea  of  the  infinite  is  the  result, 
therefore,   not  of  weakness,  but  of  strength.     Further,  he 


1874.]  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE    SCIENCE.  17 

attempts  to  show  that  the  Ultimate  Infinite,  the  Cause  of  the 
universe,  although  necessarily  conceived  as  existent,  is, 
nevertheless,  in  every  one  of  its  attributes,  totally  incon- 
ceivable and  unknowable.  This  he  declares  to  be  the  final 
result,  both  in  science  and  religion ;  both  come  to  the  ac- 
knowledgement of  an  utterly  inscrutable  and  unknowable 
origin  of  all  things.  Religion,  according  to  him,  is  the  feeling 
of  awe  and  mystery  awakened  by  our  having  the  presence 
of  the  unknowable  constantly  pressed  upon  our  recognition. 
Science  is  the  knowledge  which  leads  up  to  and  defines  the 
limits  separating  the  knowable  from  the  unknowable.  He 
speaks  quite  sharply  of  those  who  predicate  personality  of 
the  first  cause,  and  asks  whether  there  may  not  be  a  mode 
of  being  as  much  transcending  intelligence  and  will  as  these 
transcend  mechanical  motion.  The  ultimate  cause,  he  says, 
cannot  be  in  any  respect  conceived  by  us,  because  it  is  in 
every  respect  greater  than  we  can  conceive.  Therefore,  he 
concludes,  we  must  refrain  from  assigning  to  it  any  attribute 
whatever ;  because  any  attribute  conceivable  by  us  would 
degrade  the  ultimate  cause.  And  this  position,  Spencer  de- 
clares is  that  religious  position  which  is  most  religious. 

Yet  this  position  is  inconsistent  with  the  fundamental 
postulates  of  Herbert  Spencer's  own  philosophy ;  inconsistent 
also  with  the  principles  by  which  he  proves,  against  Mansel 
and  Hamilton,  that  our  idea  of  the  infinite  involves  a  positive 
side,  an  affirmative  of  existence.  Moreover,  this  doctrine  of 
Spencer,  like  Comte's  Positive  Philosophy,  asks  us  to  hold 
the  mind  in  unstable  equilibrium,  always  believing  in  the 
existence  of  a  being,  to  which  indeed  our  attention  is  per- 
petually directed,  but  to  which  we  cannot,  and  must  not, 
assign  any  attribute  whatever.  Compliance  with  this  com- 
mandment is  simply  impossible.  I  know  beings  only  through 
their  attributes ;  I  recognize  their  being  only  through  the 
recognition  of  their  attributes  ;  and  cannot,  therefore,  recog- 
nize the  existence  of  the  Ultimate  Cause,  except  by  his 
attributes. 

After  reading  this  impossible  and  self-contradictory  demand 

Vol.  XXXI.  No.  121.  3 


18  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  [Jan. 

of  Spencer,  we  can  bear  with  equanimity  the  pitying  and 
condescending  tone  in  which  he  informs  us  that  our  culture 
has  probably  not  been  sufficient  to  enable  us  to  accept  the 
great  truth  which  he  has  revealed.  His  doctrine  of  the  un- 
knowable, his  doctrine  of  the  nature  of  the  ego,  and  of  volition, 
all  contradict  what  he  himself  calls  the  universal  postulate. 
Any  belief  that  invariably  exists  in  the  mind,  that  you  cannot 
by  any  effort  of  the  imagination,  even  for  a  moment,  suppose 
to  be  false,  that  belief  is  true.  This  is  Spencer's  universal 
postulate.  And  he  not  only  admits,  but  strongly  maintains 
that  the  existence  of  the  ultimate  cause  is  avouched  to  us  by 
this  canon.  Yet  he  says  that  we  must  assign  to  this  cause  no 
attribute  whatever.  But  this  is  impossible ;  we  cannot,  by 
any  act  of  the  imagination,  even  for  one  moment,  conceive 
of  the  existence  of  a  being,  except  by  conceiving  it  with 
attributes ;  the  existence  is  conceived  only  by  the  conception 
of  the  attributes.  You  cannot  for  one  instant  divest  your- 
self of  the  belief  that  the  Ultimate  Cause  of  the  universe  is  a 
cause ;  and  that  is  the  assigning  to  it  of  the  attribute  of 
power,  of  causal  energy. 

Moreover,  it  is  impossible  for  a  cultivated  man,  like  Spencer, 
who  has  by  education  learned  to  distinguish  what  he  sees,  — 
it  is  impossible  for  him  to  behold  the  rational,  intelligible, 
and  beneficent  order  of  the  universe,  and  not  attribute  intel- 
ligence and  benevolence  to  the  Ultimate  Cause.  He  deceives 
himself  with  words  when  he  says  that  he  can.  He  betrays, 
in  many  passages  of  his  writings,  his  ineradicable  faith  that 
there  is  no  vice  in  the  constitution  of  things,  that  every 
thing  is  in  the  process  of  harmonious  evolution,  that  all  things 
work  together  for  good  to  those  who  surrender  the  private 
to  the  universal.  His  very  law  of  evolution,  which  his  over- 
enthusiastic  friends  think  the  greatest  utterance  of  human 
language,  is  an  implicit  announcement  of  the  presence  of 
thought  and  beneficence  in  every  part  of  the  universe  in 
every  geologic  age.  And,  without  reference  to  Spencer's 
law,  every  student  of  natural  science  acts  upon  a  steadfast 
faith  that  the  operations  of  nature  follow  a  rational,  intel- 


1874.]  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE    SCIENCE.  19 

ligible,  order  ;  he  cannot,  even  momentarily,  divest  himself 
of  this  faith  ;  and  this  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  he  cannot 
divest  himself  of  the  belief  that  the  Ultimate  Cause  of  nature 
is  intelligent.  When  Spencer  supposes  that  he  has  done  so, 
it  is  simply  because  he  has  fastened  on  the  finite  side  of  our 
conceptions  of  intelligence  ;  and  he  very  properly  refuses  to 
assign  the  limitations,  and  deficiencies  of  human  intelligence 
to  the  Infinite  Creator.  But  his  doctrine  of  the  unknowable 
is  an  unwarranted  inference  from  propositions  concerning 
the  infinite,  doubly  unwarranted  ;  first,  because  it  is  illogically 
drawn  ;  secondly,  because  his  premises  contain  the  infinite  ; 
and  we  can  never  reason  to  finite  conclusions  from  infinite 
premises.  Whether  the  eye  was  made  for  seeing,  whether 
the  rose  was  made  to  please  man,  these  are  finite  questions, 
and  no  conclusion  on  these  questions  can  be  reached  by 
starting  from  a  consideration  of  the  infinite.  On  the  other 
hand,  relations  which  hold  in  the  finite,  may,  from  the  law 
of  their  changes  as  their  relatives  pass  through  the  indefinite, 
be  proved  to  hold  in  the  infinite.  The  ultimate  source  of 
all,  infinite,  eternal,  unbounded,  may  then  be  unknowable ; 
while  yet  there  are  innumerable  truths  concerning  him,  ac- 
cessible to  man  without  recourse  to  revelation.  Ta  yap 
aopara  Avrov  airo  Kriaeax;  koct/jlov  tois  vroi-rjfiacn  voovfieva 
KaOopdrat,  r\  re  at'Sio?  Avtou  Swa/At?  /cat  0€i6tt)s. 

When  St.  Paul  declares  that  the  invisible  power  and  divine 
attributes  of  God  are  clearly  seen,  he  announces  what  we 
understand  to  be  sound  philosophy  in  regard  to  intuitions ; 
he  asserts  the  power  of  the  soul  to  see,  to  recognize  the 
presence  of  beings  around  us.  Two  theories  concerning 
intuitions  have,  at  different  times,  exerted  a  retarding  in- 
fluence upon  philosophy.  The  first  was  that  of  innate  ideas ; 
the  doctrine  that  we  are  born  with  knowledge,  an  error  arising 
it  is  said,  first  from  a  misinterpretation  of  Plato,  confounding 
perception  with  imagination,  and  making  both  wholly  sub- 
jective phenomena  ;  this  error  was  warmly  attacked  by  Locke. 
The  second  and  more  important  theory  is  that  of  Kant's 
forms  of  thought,  which  has   been  vigorously  controverted 


20  THEOLOGY   A   POSSIBLE  SCIENCE  [Jan. 

by  Herbert  Spencer  in  his  first  principles  of  psychology. 
But  after  confuting  the  views  of  the  Kantians,  Spencer  falls 
into  an  opposite  error.  His  discussion  relates  only  to  the 
intuitions  of  space  and  time,  which  many  transcendentalists, 
from  a  misinterpretation,  it  is  said,  of  Kant,  assert  to  be  not 
the  perception  of  realities  outside  the  mind,  but  simply  forms 
given  by  the  mind  to  external  realities  revealed  by  experience. 
Spencer  shows  very  clearly  that  space  and  time  do  not  belong 
to  the  mind,  but  to  the  external  universe  ;  proving  his  thesis 
by  metaphysical  argument,  and  by  psychological  induction. 
But  he  immediately  rushes  into  the  error  of  Comte,  con- 
cluding that  space  is  an  attribute  of  matter,  "  the  relation 
of  coexistence,"  and  time  is  the  "  relativity  of  position  among 
the  states  of  consciousness,"  that  is  sequence  of  thoughts. 
Thus  space  would  be  confounded  with  extension,  and  time 
with  duration  ;  errors  as  mischievous  as  those  of  the  trans- 
cendentalists. The  empiric  philosophy  of  the  Latin  race, 
leading  them  thus  to  confound  space  with  extension,  de- 
stroyed their  interest  in  geometry ;  not  a  single  mathematician 
and  scarce  one  physicist,  appears  in  the  annals  of  Rome, 
from  her  foundation  to  her  fall. 

The  intuitions  are  true  acts  of  perception  by  the  soul ;  the 
most  satisfactory  simplicity  and  truthfulness  is  given  to  our 
philosophy  by  thus  enlarging  the  field  of  perception  until  it 
embraces  all  cognizable  existence.  This  may  be  illustrated 
by  this  very  example,  the  intuition  of  space. 

To  assert,  with  some  of  the  transcendentalists,  that  space  is 
a  form  of  thought  imposed  by  the  mind  upon  the  universe, 
is  a  violation  of  Spencer's  universal  postulate,  a  contradiction 
of  the  common  sense  of  mankind.  For  we  cannot  even  for 
an  instant  imagine  the  possible  non-existence  of  space.  Kant 
himself,  whose  logical  canon  has  been,  it  is  said,  misconstrued 
into  the  denial  of  the  objective  existence  of  space,  certainly 
affirms  the  impossibility  of  the  mind  divesting  itself,  even 
momentarily,  of  its  faith  in  the  objective  existence  of  space. 
On  the  other  hand,  to  assert  with  the  empiricists  that  space 
is  mere  co-existence  of  the  parts  of  the  universe,  that  it  is 


1874.]  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE    SCIENCE.  21 

mere  extension  in  matter,  is  equally  a  contradiction  of  com- 
mon sense,  and  a  violation  of  the  universal  postulate.  For 
it  is  impossible  to  think  space  conditional  on  the  existence  of 
mattf«\  It  is  difficult  to  believe  matter  infinitely  extended, 
it  is  impossible  to  believe  space  otherwise.  And  if  space  be 
merely  an  attribute  of  matter,  why  is  it  impossible  to  imagine 
space  annihilated  ?  and  why  do  we  deem  the  truths  of  geom- 
etry necessary  truths  ? 

The  empiricists  would  explain  this  sense  of  the  necessary 
existence  of  space,  by  the  uniformity  of  our  experience. 
Spencer  in  adopting  this  line  of  argument,  contradicts  his 
own  universal  postulate.  Moreover,  the  explanation  explains 
nothing  ;  how  can  uniformity  of  experience  generate  the  con- 
ception of  the  necessity  of  the  thing  experienced  ?  The 
extension  of  matter  is  no  more  uniform  an  experience  than  is 
its  existence  ;  and  yet  Spencer  himself,  says  we  can  conceive 
of  annihilating  matter,  but  not  of  annihilating  space. 

But  the  third  doctrine  concerning  space  is  the  common 
sense  idea,  that  space  is  space  ;  not  a  form  of  our  thought, 
nor  a  form  of  matter,  but  existing  independently  of  our 
thoughts,  and  of  the  presence  of  matter  ;  a  simple,  indefinable 
entity  in  whose  infinite  extension  the  finite  extensions  of 
matter  are  included  ;  in  whose  eternal  durations,  the  changes 
of  the  material  world  find  their  time  of  manifestation.  Its 
existence  is  revealed  to  me  by  inward  sight,  just  as  the  ex- 
istence of  an  outward  world  is  revealed  to  me  by  sense  per- 
ceptions. I  see  space,  that  is  the  reason  I  believe  it  exists, 
and  cannot  with  the  transcendentalists  make  it  a  law  of  my 
own  mind,  nor  with  the  empiricist  make  it  an  attribute  of 
matter.  I  see  it,  and  I  see  in  it  no  other  attributes  than 
that  of  extension  in  three  dimensions,  upon  which,  and  upon 
the  abstract  imagination  of  position,  derived  from  matter, 
the  science  of  geometry  is  built.  I  see  space  extending 
indefinitely  in  all  directions ;  and  can  see  no  possibility  of 
limiting  it  in  any  direction.  Its  simplicity  and  infinity  and 
eternity  relieve  me  from  any  necessity  of  supposing  a  cause 
for  its  existence ;  and  I  am  entirely  at  a  loss  to  imagine  its 


22  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  [Jan. 

relations  to  the  Ultimate  Cause  of  the  material  and  spiritual 
universe ;  other  than  this,  that  space  is  a  field  wherein  that 
Cause  has  arranged  the  Kosmos. 

We  see  space,  but  it  is  because  the  eye  has  been  educated 
to  see  it ;  by  a  process  which  is  so  admirably  described  by 
Spencer,  that  it  seems  strange  that  he  does  not  recognize  its 
meaning.  The  eye  is  educated  to  see  space,  as  the  ear  is 
educated  to  hear  harmony.  An  untutored  ear  frequently 
fails  to  recognize  harmonies,  and  hears  only  melodies ;  but 
the  same  ear,  after  cultivation,  recognizes  the  relations  of 
simultaneous  tones  with  the  greatest  exactness.  The  phys- 
icist demonstrates  that  this  perception  of  harmony  is  the 
perception  of  a  really  existent  external  fact.  Thus  also  the 
metaphysician  shall  demonstrate  that  the  perception  of  space 
attained  by  geometrical  cultivation  is  the  perception  of  a 
really  existent  entity  about  us. 

This  power  of  inward  perception  reveals  to  us  other  things 
than  the  existence  of  space  and  time.  The  clear  sight  of 
the  invisible  things  of  God,  even  his  eternal  power  and  god- 
head, is  not  by  vision  of  the  outward  eye ;  but  it  is  real,  it 
is  a  direct  inward  vision  of  the  divine  attributes.  Without 
some  power  in  the  soul  to  see  what  is  divine,  theology  would 
be  as  impossible  as  a  knowledge  of  painting  is  to  the  blind, 
or  of  music  to  those  born  deaf.  No  instruction  can  lead  a 
man  to  receive  and  accept  truths,  unless  he  has,  at  least, 
some  native  capacity  to  see  those  truths.  Of  course,  a  man 
may  believe  more  than  he  clearly  understands,  —  there  is 
some  truth  in  Hamilton's  saying,  that  the  horizon  of  our 
faith  is  much  wider  than  the  horizon  of  our  knowledge.  We 
may  even  believe  that  a  proposition  is  true  when  we  do  not 
understand  it  at  all ;  but  in  that  case  we  do  not  strictly 
believe  in  the  proposition,  but  only  in  a  proposition  about  it. 
Much  more  may  we  believe  that  a  proposition  is  true,  when 
in  addition  to  believing  that  it  embodies  truth,  we  understand 
and  believe  a  part  of  the  truth  which  it  embodies.  But  we 
cannot  believe  in  the  truth  which  it  embodies,  unless  we  see 
with  our  own  vision,  however  dimly  and  partially,  both  the 
terms  and  the  relation. 


1874.]  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE   SCIENCE.  23 

Yet  we  must  acknowledge  that  the  power  is  sometimes 
claimed  of  seeing  that  which  is  really  non-existent ;  and  also 
that  it  is  rare  to  find  an  observer  who  knows  what  he  sees, 
even  with  the  outward  eye.  The  outward  eye  sees  with  a 
power  varying  greatly  in  different  men,  according  to  natural 
gift,  and  according  to  education ;  so  that  the  report  which 
men  give  to  themselves  and  to  others,  of  what  they  have 
seen,  agrees  or  disagrees  with  the  thing  seen,  according  to 
native  and  acquired  differences  in  the  sense,  the  imagination, 
and  the  judgment  of  the  observer.  If  this  be  so,  even  with 
matters  of  outward  sight,  it  is  more  emphatically  true  con- 
cerning the  inward  vision  of  divine  things.  Some  persons 
see  so  dimly,  and  others  are  so  unwilling  to  see,  that  they 
say,  or  even  think,  that  they  do  not  see  at  all ;  others  think 
that  they  actually  see  that  which  they  only  infer  from  various 
data;  others,  through  vividness  of  imagination,  mistake  visions 
for  vision.  Thus  some  declare  all  religion  unreal,  and  make 
the  soul  merely  the  movement  of  the  brain  ;  and  others  de- 
clare themselves  immediately  conscious  of  immortality,  and 
of  the  presence  of  God.  Both  these  assertions  are  at  first 
sight  improbable.  If  religion  were  altogether  unreal,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  account  for  the  universal  prevalence  of 
religious  faith.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  man  had  immediate 
consciousness  of  God  and  of  immortality,  it  were  difficult  to 
account  for  the  frequent  appearance  of  pantheism,  atheism, 
and  secularism.  What  then  is  the  golden  mean  of  truth 
between  these  extremes  ? 

In  sense-perception  we  are  directly  conscious  of  ourselves 
as  recipients  of  an  impression  from  without.  The  conscious- 
ness of  perception  thus  gives  us  two  beings  —  self,  recognized 
as  percipient;  matter,  recognized  as  causing  sensation.  This 
sensation  may  be  greatly  varied  in  its  form,  and  thus  give 
us  varied  information  concerning  its  cause.  The  conscious- 
ness of  the  simplest  sensation  is  also  complex.  I  see  ver- 
milion. That  act  gives  me  my  own  existence,  my  power  of 
sight,  my  power  of  distinguishing  colors,  my  actual  exercise 
of  the  power.     It  also  gives  the  existence  of  something  out- 


24  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  [Jan. 

side  my  consciousness,  which  awakens  in  me  this  perception 
of  a  brilliant  red.  Nor  can  any  man  doubt  any  of  the  truths 
thus  given  :  he  cannot  doubt  his  own  existence,  he  cannot 
doubt  his  power  of  sight,  he  cannot  doubt  the  existence  of 
something  which  he  sees,  nor  doubt  its  power  of  making  him 
think  it  red.  Some  realistic  metaphysicians  have  been  per- 
plexed by  the  modern  discoveries  of  the  tardy  motion  of  light ; 
but  the  perplexity  is  needless.  I  see  vermilion,  and  I  see  it 
is  red ;  that  testimony  of  my  sight  is  true,  whatever  theory 
of  light  and  colors  stands  or  falls  ;  whether  in  some  other 
light  it  would  or  would  not  be  of  a  different  color ;  whether 
the  vermilion  is  ten  feet  distant  from  me,  and  now  existent, 
or  ten  diameters  of  the  solar  system  and  annihilated  an  hour 
ago :  The  eye  does  not  testify  to  sulphide  of  mercury,  but 
only  to  something  external  which  is  red  ;  and  that  something 
may  be  merely  undulations  in  the  ether. 

In  this  simple  act  of  sense-perception  there  is  also  an 
inward  perception,  or  intuition  of  cause.  Whenever  we 
perceive  a  change,  in  ourselves  or  in  the  world,  we  are  con- 
strained to  believe  in  a  cause  of  that  change.  That  constraint 
comes  from  a  direct  intuition  of  power,  as  an  entity.  The 
outward  sense  sees  the  hammer  strike  the  nail,  and  sees  the 
nail  sink  under  the  blow.  The  inner  sense  sees  that  the 
nail  could  not  sink  without  a  cause.  It  sees  also  that  the 
moving  hammer  contains  power  as  the  cause  of  its  moving. 
Hence  the  inference  is  natural,  that  the  power  in  the  hammer 
is  the  cause  of  the  motion  of  the  nail.  The  inner  sense  also 
perceives  the  effect  of  the  blow  upon  our  own  feelings,  and 
upon  our  own  attention.  It  is  of  no  importance  to  the 
present  argument  to  decide  in  which  direction  we  first  see 
causal  energy,  whether  in  our  own  volition  or  in  the  power 
of  the  external  world  to  produce  sensations  in  us,  or  in  the 
action  of  matter  upon  matter ;  we  at  all  events  see,  by  a 
sharper  sense  than  outward  sense,  the  presence  in  the  world 
of  power,  force,  or  causal  energy.  All  changes  within  and 
without  we  see  to  demand  a  cause,  and  we  are  led  to  pursue 
the  chain  of  causation  backward,  until  we  reach  one  Original 
Cause,  without  beginning  and  without  need  of  cause. 


1874.]  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE    SCIENCE.  25 

This  Herbert  Spencer  has  shown,  as  clearly  as  any  writer, 
is  the  inevitable  end  of  speculation  concerning  causes ;  we 
must  recognize  an  ultimate  cause  which  is  uncaused.  This 
is  the  first  direct  vision  of  divine  things ;  the  soul  attains  it 
by  patient  attention  to  the  chain  of  causes. 

Here  Herbert  Spencer  would  have  us  end  ;  he  pronounces 
the  ultimate  cause  to  be  not  only  unknown,  but  unknowable. 
But  man  sees,  in  his  first  act  of  sense-perception,  two  sub- 
stances in  action,  himself  and  the  outward  world.  He  rec- 
ognizes these  two  substances  by  entirely  different  attributes, 
one  by  its  power  to  produce,  the  other  by  its  power  to  perceive 
sensations.  In  higher  acts  of  perception,  he  discovers  new 
points  of  difference  between  himself  and  matter ;  each  acts  as 
a  cause  of  motion,  but  he  alone  can  guide  motion  to  fulfil 
plans,  gratify  desires,  obey  volitions.  Hence  in  speculating 
upon  the  causes  of  phenomena,  he  divides  the  causes  into 
intelligent  and  non-intelligent ;  and  thus  at  a  very  early 
period  in  his  conscious  life,  recognizes  the  existence  of  his 
fellow-men. 

Furthermore,  when  man  looks  upon  the  outward  world, 
he  is  as  much  impressed  with  the  likeness  of  nature  to  art,  as 
with  the  likeness  of  art  to  nature.  The  forms  of  nature,  also 
conform  to  ideal,  intellectual  patterns ;  the  movements  of 
nature  accomplish  beautiful  and  beneficent  results.  He  thus 
perceives  that  even  the  forces  of  nature  are  obedient  to  in- 
tellect and  to  will ;  a  higher  intellect  and  will  than  the 
human.  Now  this  is  a  direct  perception,  indistinct  though 
it  may  be,  of  a  divine  truth  ;  that  the  spirit  of  man  has  a 
likeness  to  the  Infinite  Spirit  which  moves  the  universe. 

Theists,  Pantheists,  and  Positivists  will,  however,  join  in 
attacking  this  position ;  they  will  warn  us  from  ascribing 
personality  to  God  ;  will  perhaps  assert  that  it  is  as  degrading 
to  the  Infinite  Being  to  ascribe  to  him  the  highest  attributes 
of  humanity,  as  it  would  be  to  assign  to  him  our  lower 
passions.  Nevertheless,  Paul  was  right,  and  we  see,  in  con- 
templating the  world,  the  Divine  Personality,  or  spiritual 
nature  of  its  Author. 

Vol.  XXXI.  No.  121.  4 


26  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE  SCIENCE.  [Jan. 

In  the  Ultimate  Cause  of  the  universe  must  lie  the  power 
of  producing  motion  in  all  its  forms,  else  the  universe  would 
not  contain  motion.  It  is  not  degrading  him  to  say  that  he 
is  the  source  of  the  physical  forces  which  move  the  world. 
The  ultimate  cause  must  also  contain  the  power  of  arranging 
things  according  to  intelligible  plans,  else  the  world  would 
not  be  arranged  in  its  complex  and  perfect  harmony.  Un- 
doubtedly the  Ultimate  Cause  transcends  in  his  modes  of 
being,  all  our  possible  conceptions  of  intelligence  and  will. 
Nevertheless,  the  intelligible  and  beneficent  order  of  the 
Kosmos  shows  that  those  modes  of  the  Divine  Being  include 
our  highest  conceptions  of  intelligence  and  goodness ;  and 
this  is,  of  course,  all  that  we  can  mean  by  saying  that  God  is  a 
Spirit  and  a  Person.  Spirit  and  matter  are"  the  only  two  enti- 
ties with  power,  —  substances, — given  to  us  in  consciousness, 
and  we  necessarily  liken  all  other  substances,  including  the 
Ultimate  or  First  Cause,  to  one  of  these ;  and  between  these 
we  cannot  but  choose  spirit  as  the  cause  of  matter,  rather  than 
matter  as  the  cause  of  spirit ;  thought  or  intelligence  is  the 
most  probable  cause  of  the  wonderful  order  of  the  universe. 

In  the  simplest  act  of  sense-perception  is  revealed  also  to 
us  our  freedom ;  we  can  attend  to,  or  refuse  to  attend  to,  the 
sensation.  In  the  process  of  our  experience  we  find  arising 
out  of  our  sense  of  freedom  a  sense  also  of  right  and  wrong. 
Probing  this  question  of  moral  duty,  to  discover  an  ultimate 
test  in  distinguishing  right  from  wrong,  we  find  revealed  to 
our  inward  vision,  a  moral  order  of  the  spiritual  universe  ; 
as  profound  and  as  beautiful  as  the  intelligible  order  of 
physical  nature.  The  ultimate  decision  of  a  question  of 
right,  on  which  men  hopelessly  differ,  we  see  must  lie  open 
to  the  intellect  which  planned  the  whole.  This  is  a  still 
higher  vision  of  divine  things ;  we  see  by  direct  vision  the 
existence  of  right  and  wrong ;  we  see  that  the  difference 
between  them  is  known  to  the  intelligent  First  Cause. 

Once  more ;  in  our  simple  act  of  sense-perception,  sub- 
stance is  revealed  as  comparatively  permanent ;  neither  the 
percipient  self,  nor  the  thing  perceived,  is  created  by  the  per- 


1874.]  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE    SCIENCE.  27 

ception,  nor  annihilated  by  its  cessation.  The  question  of 
our  own  duration,  our  own  permanence,  is  thus  presented, 
and  we  find  a  shrinking  from  the  thought  of  our  own  annihi- 
lation. Our  thoughts  rise  to  the  contemplation  of  the  Ulti- 
mate Cause  of  the  universe,  and  we  see  that  he  must  have 
been  without  beginning  and  shall  be  without  end.  Even 
Spencer,  while  saying  that  we  must  ascribe  no  attributes  to 
the  Ultimate  Cause,  pronounces  that  Cause  to  be  eternal 
and  omnipre«<mt.  Here  then  are  glimpses  of  God's  eternity 
and  man's  immortality. 

Finally,  we  contemplate  a  man  acting  against  his  own 
conviction  of  right ;  and  we  irresistibly  feel  that  sooner  or 
later  the  right  must  be  avenged ;  that  a  man  thus  acting  is 
violating  the  conditions  on  which  alone  life  is  possible  ;  that 
the  order  of  the  universe  and  the  progress  of  events  cannot 
allow  permanent  prosperity  to  a  violator  of  the  right.  This 
sense  of  condemnation  for  sin,  this  faith  in  a  coming  retribu- 
tion, arises  from  an  intuitive  vision  of  the  justice  of  God,  and 
is  so  ineradicable,  so  inextinguishable,  that  the  failure  of 
retribution  in  this  life,  so  far  from  shaking  our  faith  in  that 
justice,  only  strengthens  our  faith  in  a  hereafter  for  man. 

However  impossible,  therefore,  it  may  be  for  a  finite  crea- 
ture to  comprehend  the  Infinite  Creator,  it  is  nevertheless  clear 
that  man  has  a  direct  vision  of  some  of  the  attributes  of  the 
Creator.  We  see  his  power,  as  the  efficient  cause  of  all  phe- 
nomena ;  we  see  his  wisdom  displayed  in  the  beautiful  and 
marvellous  order  of  creation ;  we  see  his  love  in  the  beneficent 
operation  of  natural  laws ;  we  see  his  holiness,  his  justice, 
his  eternity,  as  well  as  glimpses  of  man's  immortality,  when 
we  look  directly  at  the  relations  of  the  soul  to  its  Creator. 
These  all  bear  the  essential  marks  of  direct  vision,  just  as 
truly  as  sense-perceptions  do.  No  keenness  of  analysis  ever 
succeeded  in  explaining  one  of  them  as  an  inference  from 
any  simpler  truth.  Such  analysis  has  frequently  been  at- 
tempted, especially  by  the  empiric  school ;  but  when  we 
examine  their  attempts,  we  find  they  omit  from  analysis,  tho 
essential  point  to  be  analyzed.  They  resolve  cause  into  invari- 


28  THEOLOGY  A  POSSIBLE   SCIENCE.  [Jan. 

able  sequences,  omitting  the  notion  of  efficiency  or  power, 
the  very  thing  to  be  considered.  They  resolve  right  into 
expediency ;  evading  the  very  point  why  we  distinguish  so 
emphatically  between  the  two.  But  the  need  of  causal 
efficiency  in  an  Eternal  Being,  to  produce  the  transitory 
world  ;  the  need  of  intelligence  in  the  creation  and  guidance 
of  this  goodly  frame ;  the  presence  of  divine  love,  in  the 
adaptation  of  nature  to  human  needs;  the  holinesss  and 
justice  ruling  over  human  affairs  ;  these  are  self-evident  and 
necessary  to  the  man  who  patiently,  steadily  looks  at  them  ; 
the  very  philosophers  who  have  been  led  by  vicious  argu- 
ments from  the  infinite  to  attempt  to  deny  them,  nevertheless 
betray  in  unguarded  moments  their  ineradicable  faith  in 
them.  The  self-evidence  and  necessity  of  these  truths  guar- 
antees them  to  be  truths  of  direct  vision.  In  our  power  to 
see  them  lies  the  glory  of  our  intellectual  nature ;  in  the 
power  to  see  divine  things ;  and  it  is  the  salvation  of  the 
soul,  when,  seeing  divine  truth,  we  seize  it  with  the  living 
and  earnest  grasp  of  faith.  Herein  lies  the  true  distinction 
between  reason  and  faith,  whether  in  geometry  or  theology ; 
reason  sees  and  assents  to  truth ;  faith  sees  and  consents, 
lays  hold  of  the  truth  as  a  part  of  our  own  life.  It  is  this 
ability  to  see  and  believe  the  things  of  God,  which  enables 
man  to  receive  the  revelation  through  the  written  and  spoken 
word  ;  and  the  higher  the  native  ability  of  a  man  the  greater 
the  value  of  the  revelation  to  him.  It  is  in  vain  to  give  the 
best  instruction  in  geometry  to  a  student  who  is  utterly  defi- 
cient in  mathematical  power ;  but  the  best  text-books  and 
instruction  are  of  most  value  to  those  who  have  the  highest 
native  genius,  and  who  can  appreciate  their  opportunities. 

Thus  also  in  theology  ;  those  whose  vision  of  divine  things 
is  by  nature  clearest,  and  whose  hearts  are  most  nearly  free 
from  sin,  are,  in  general,  the  very  persons  who  most  eagerly 
welcome,  and  most  thoroughly  profit  by,  the  revelations  made 
upon  Mt.  Sinai,  and  upon  the  mount  of  beatitudes,  on  the 
mount  of  transfiguration,  on  Calvary,  and  on  Olivet.  It  is 
very  difficult  for  us,  brought  up  in  the  noonday  of  Christian 


1874.]  GALILEE  IN  THE  TIME  OF  CHRIST.  29 

light,  to  decide  how  much  we  owe  of  our  knowledge  of  God 
to  the  Teacher  who  spake  as  never  man  spake.  We  may  err 
upon  either  side.  We  may  overvalue  our  own  ability,  fail 
to  recognize  the  light  which  flows  from  the  divine  word,  and 
overrate  our  powers  of  unaided  vision  in  discerning  things 
that  pertain  to  God.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  say  that  with- 
out Christ  we  have  no  knowledge  of  divine  things,  then  we 
assert  that  man  has  no  power  to  recognize  the  Christ ;  no 
test  whereby  to  know  that  he  came  from  God.  But  to  fair- 
minded  observers,  whether  believers  in  divine  revelation  or 
not,  it  is  apparent  that  one  of  the  strongest  arguments  in 
favor  of  admitting  the  royal  claims  of  Jesus,  is  the  wonder- 
fully beautiful  coincidence  of  every  doctrine  of  his  discourse, 
and  every  manifestation  of  his  character,  with  our  own  con- 
ception of  what  is  highest,  most  true,  most  worthy  of  the 
incarnate  Word  of  God. 


THE 


BIBLIOTHEOA    SACRA. 


ARTICLE    I. 
THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY  SURE. 

BY  THOMAS  HILL,  D.D.  LL.D.,  FORMERLY  PRESIDENT  OF  HARVARD  COLLEGE. 

It  is  difficult  for  us  to  distinguish  between  our  most  simple 
and  direct  inferences  and  the  perceived  facts  on  which  we 
found  them ;  and  this  difficulty  is  as  real  in  the  case  of 
sensible  as  of  supersensible  objects.  Nor  is  it  always  im- 
portant for  us  to  make  the  distinction  ;  it  is,  in  many  cases, 
enough  for  us  to  feel  the  certainty  of  our  knowledge  or  belief, 
and  the  reality  of  our  emotions,  without  asking  the  grounds. 
As  Catullus  sings : 

"  I  hate,  I  love ;  you  ask  why  this  I  do  i 
My  torture  only  tells  me  that  'tis  true.1' 

Sundry  modern  writers  attempt  to  explain  the  instinctive 
desires  and  aversions  on  the  ground  of  experience  ;  Spencer 
calling  in  the  experience  of  the  ancestry  to  explain  the  fact 
that  these  desires  and  aversions  are  manifested  at  the  very 
beginning  of  conscious  life.  The  fact  itself  is  patent  to  all 
observers,  whether  in  animals  or  in  new-born  children.  The 
appetites  lead  the  animal  directly,  without  tentation,  to  the 
actions  which  gratify  them,  very  much  as  if  the  animal  had 
an  antecedent  knowledge  of  the  object,  and  of  the  gratifica- 
tion which  would  be  yielded  by  its  possession.  In  the  child 
free  to  choose  its  mode  of  life  the  desire  infallibly  leads  to 
the  experience ;  and,  although  the  knowledge  is  not  innate, 

Vol.  XXXI.  No.  122.— April,  1874.  27 


32  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.  [April, 

it  is  what  has  been  called  inchoate;  its  foundations  are  in  the 
soul,  and  it  grows  with  our  growth. 

Among  the  native  cravings  of  the  human  soul  is  the 
craving  for  sympathy,  for  human  society,  which  seems  to 
imply,  and  which  certainly  develops  in  the  child,  at  a  very 
early  pe  ;iod,  a  knowledge  of  human  beings,  and  of  its  own 
human  nature.  We  know  the  existence  of  our  fellow  men 
with  a  certainty  like  that  of  intuition  or  of  direct  sight.  We 
are  certain  of  the  existence  of  beings  with  a  nature  funda- 
mentally identical  with  our  own  —  with  thoughts  and  feelings, 
desires  and  purposes,  and  with  a  power  of  will  like  unto 
ours.  The  ground  on  which  we  base  our  certainty  might  be 
assumed,  by  some  persons,  to  be  the  cumulative  probability 
in  favor  of  the  hypothesis  which  would  explain  such  an 
indefinite  number  of  facts  in  our  experience.  But  a  child, 
certainly,  is  never  conscious  of  weighing  the  probabilities 
whether  his  father  or  mother,  his  brother  or  sister,  exist ; 
nor  does  the  mature  mind  look  at  it  in  that  light.  We  know, 
of  course,  that  there  is  every  probability  in  favor  of  the 
proposition ;  but  we  drop  the  question  of  probability,  and 
know  the  existence  of  other  men  as  certainly  as  we  know 
our  own. 

This  voice  of  authority  within  us  is  the  unrecognized  voice 
of  the  social  instincts ;  its  authority  is  recognized,  but  not  its 
origin ;  that  is,  we  do  not  here,  any  more  than  in  other 
instances,  argue  consciously  from  the  appetite  to  the  existence 
of  the  object ;  yet  it  is  the  appetite  that  gives  the  intense 
faith  in  its  desired  object.  Thus,  also,  our  filial  and  our 
parental  love,  our  craving  for  sympathy,  our  attachment  to 
friends,  our  happiness  at  home,  our  gratitude  to  benefactors, 
our  sense  of  justice,  and  other  sentiments,  give  us,  without 
conscious  inference,  a  certainty  in  the  existence  of  our  fellow 
men  —  a  certainty  as  immovable  as  that  of  our  own  existence. 

In  a  perfectly  analogous  manner  the  religious  sentiments 
give  to  the  soul  that  is  vividly  conscious  of  them  a  certainty 
of  the  existence  of  the  objects  of  that  faith.  The  existence 
of  the  religious  sentiment  is  acknowledged  by  nearly  every 


1874.]  THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY    SURE.  S3 

writer.  Even  Herbert  Spencer,  whose  psychology  is  so  in- 
adequate to  account  for  religious  emotions,  declares  that 
contact  for  countless  generations  with  the  unknowable  has 
produced  a  hereditary  awe  of  the  Ultimate  Cause,  so  that 
men  are  now  born  with  an  aptitude  for  religious  feeling,  and 
that  this  native  religious  sentiment  is  ineradicable. 

But  this  sentiment,  which  Spencer  confesses  to  be,  iu  this 
generation,  inborn  and  of  the  highest  value,  cannot  possibly 
have  the  form  assigned  to  it  by  that  ingenious  writer,  of  a 
mere  awe  of  the  unknowable.  The  unknown  and  unknow- 
able cannot  excite  awe,  for  it  cannot  affect  our  feelings  in 
any  manner — a  conclusion  which  would  not  be  affected  by 
conceding  Spencer  and  Maudesley's  doctrine  of  the  heredi- 
tary accretion  of  our  mental  and  moral  powers.  What  is 
wholly  unknown  and  unknowable  to  the  race  cannot  affect 
the  consciousness  of  an  individual.  "Were  Spencer  right  in 
making  all  religious  emotion  consist  in  awe  of  the  Ultimate 
Cause,  that  awe  would  not  arise  from  the  contemplation  of 
the  unknowable,  but  of  the  known.  In  recognizing  the 
existence  of  a  cause,  we  just  so  far  know  it  as  a  cause.  This 
is  precisely  the  way  in  which  we  know  all  that  is  known  —  as 
the  causes  of  phenomena ;  we  know  the  causes  in  the  effects. 
Spencer  says  that,  our  belief  in  an  omnipresent,  eternal  Cause 
of  the  universe  has  a  higher  warrant  than  any  other  belief, 
that  is,  that  the  existence  of  such  a  Cause  is  the  most  certain 
of  all  certainties  ;  but  asserts  that  we  can  assign  to  it  no 
attributes  whatever,  that  it  is  absolutely  unknown  and  un- 
knowable. Yet  in  his  very  statement  of  its  existence,  he 
assigns  to  the  Ultimate  Cause  four  attributes,  viz.  being, 
causal  energy,  omnipresence,  and  eternity.  And  afterwards 
he  implicitly  assigns  to  it  two  other  attributes  —  repeatedly 
expressing  his  faith  that  the  cosmos  is  obedient  to  law,  and 
that  this  law  is  of  beneficent  result;  which  is  an  implicit 
ascription  of  wisdom  and  love  to  the  Ultimate  Cause.  By 
his  own  principles,  it  could  be  shown  readily  that  these 
six  attributes  are  absolutely  known  attributes,  and  that, 
therefore  the   being  of  God,  in   the  Jewish   and  Christian 


34  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.  [April, 

sense  of  that  sacred  name,  is  the  most  certain  of  all  cer- 
tainties. For  when  we  have  arrived  at  the  generalization 
that  the  whole  universe  is  moving  by  intelligible  law  to  the 
fulfilment  of  benevolent  ends,  it  it  impossible  to  refrain  from 
assigning  its  origin  to  a  Being  Omnipresent,  Eternal,  Al- 
mighty, All-wise,  and  All-good.  It  has,  indeed,  taken  a  long 
course  of  culture,  aided  by  the  sublime  word  of  Genesis, 
which  Spencer  ignorantly  calls  a  Hebrew  myth,  to  lead  men 
to  this  clear  perception  of  the  presence  of  God  in  the  creation ; 
but  this  does  not  show  that  the  idea  is  the  mere  product  of 
culture.  Some  of  the  self-evident  truths  of  mathematics 
have  required  thousands  of  years  of  the  culture  of  mathe- 
matical genius  to  bring  them  now  to  light;  yet  they  were 
true  from  before  eternity. 

The  unknown  and  unknowable  are  matters  of  absolute 
indifference  to  us ;  we  can  be  made  to  feel  concerning  the 
unknown  only  by  giving  us  partial  knowledge,  and  awaking 
the  hope  of  further  discovery.  The  instincts  of  reverence 
and  adoration  are  not  called  into  action,  as  Spencer  falsely 
supposes,  by  contact  with  the  unknowable,  but  by  what  is 
known,  and  particularly  by  sudden  glimpses  of  the  indefinite 
extent  of  the  knowable.  The  most  profound  emotions  of  the 
sublime  are  always  called  out,  as  Goddard  has  shown,  by  a 
sudden  perception  of  the  vast  field  accessible  to  us,  and  never 
by  the  perception  that  a  field  is  wholly  inaccessible.  Thus 
with  the  sublime  attributes  of  the  Deity  ;  the  more  profound 
our  knowledge  of  the  rational,  intelligible  order  of  the 
universe,  the  higher  will  be  our  amazement  at  his  boundless 
reach  of  thought ;  the  more  full  our  appreciation  of  the 
beneficence  of  his  work,  the  deeper  will  be  our  gratitude  for 
his  ineffable  goodness;  and  the  clearer  our  conception  of  the 
moral  order  of  the  universe  and  of  the  righteousness  of  its 
compensations,  the  lowlier  will  be  our  adoration  of  his 
holiness. 

When  these  emotions  of  adoring  gratitude  and  wonder 
and  praise  are  fully  aroused  in  the  soul,  they  give,  without 
conscious  inference  on  our  part,  a  certainty  to  our  knowledge 


1874.]  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.  35 

of  God,  such  as  is  given  by  our  social  instincts  to  the 
knowledge  of  man  ;  and  we  are  right  in  saying,  I  know 
whom  I  have  believed.  It  is  incredible  that  the  soul  should 
have  these  sentiments  of  adoration  and  gratitude  and  love 
planted  so  deep  within  it,  and  that  there  should  be  no  object 
to  which  they  cling.  The  faith  in  the  living  God,  which  the 
soul  aroused  in  its  deepest  religious  nature  feels,  is  well 
described  by  Herbert  Spencer,  in  speaking  of  faith  in  a  First 
Cause,  as  a  belief  having  a  higher  warrant  than  any  other 
belief  whatever,  the  consciousness  of  which  cannot  be  sup- 
pressed, without  suppressing  consciousness  itself. 

In  every  ordinary  state  of  consciousness  we  know  both 
ourselves  as  conscious,  and  the  external,  world  as  producing 
some  effect  upon  our  consciousness.  It  is  sometimes  attempted 
to  assume  that  consciousness  is  a  state  of  the  brain ;  but 
that  is  a  notion  which  cannot  be  constructed.  We  know  the 
brain  only  by  its  sensible  properties.  We  know  consciousness 
only  in  consciousness,  and  cannot  in  real  thought  predicate 
it  of  the  brain.  "  It  would  be  as  practicable  to  imagine  a 
round  square." 

In  ourselves,  in  our  conscious  thought  and  feeling,  we  find 
the  capability  of  indefinite  expansion.  Our  thoughts  rush 
ever  in  both  directions,  toward  the  infinitesimal  and  toward 
the  infinite.  In  the  mathematics  it  has  been  demonstrated 
that  every  function  is  completely  determined  by  determining 
its  infinite  and  its  zero  values ;  and  in  every  department  of 
thought  a  similar  truth  is  assumed,  so  that  we  at  once 
attempt  the  solution  of  the  infinites.  Even  Spencer,  who  de- 
clares the  infinite  utterly  unknowable,  tells  us,  with  glorious 
inconsistency,  that  the  evolution  now  going  on  has  gone  on 
from  eternity,  and  will  go  on  to  eternity  ;  thus  virtually 
saying  that  the  secrets  of  the  Infinite,  although  unknowable 
to  man,  are  known  by  him.  This  is  the  un quenched  spark 
of  divine  light  within  him,  shining  through  his  darkness,  and 
not  comprehended  by  his  mistaken  logic. 

As  the  intellect  thus  ever  seeks  the  infinite,  and,  in  im- 
portant senses,  finds  the  infinite  it  seeks,  so  the  heart  yearns 


36  THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY   SURE.  [April, 

for  an  infinite  wisdom  wherein  to  trust,  an  almighty  arm 
whereon  to  lean,  an  unfathomable  love  wherein  to  rejoice 
No  mortal  counsel  gives  us  entire  confidence,  no  human 
sympathy  supports  us  under  every  burden,  no  earthly  love 
gives  perfect  peace  to  the  heart ;  we  trust  in  the  guidance 
of  the  eternal  Providence,  we  cast  our  burdens  on  the  Lord, 
we  rejoice  in  the  fulness  of  the  divine  love.  These  glowing 
Christian  affections  are  an  unerring  indication  of  the  reality 
of  the  objects  to  which  they  cling,  and  of  the  immortality  of 
the  being  in  whom  they  exist.  This  yearning  for  the  infinite 
shows  an  element  of  the  infinite  within  us. 

The  empirics  endeavor  to  show  an  unbroken  series  of  psy- 
chologic states,  from  the  highest  saints  and  sages  down  to 
the  lowest  zoophyte,  and  ask,  where  shall  you  draw  the  line  ? 
We  answer  that  it  is  of  comparatively  little  importance.  It 
were  more  reasonable  to  admit  the  immortality  of  ascidians, 
about  whose  psychical  state  we  know  nothing,  than  to  deny 
the  immortality  of  man,  concerning  whose  psychical  state  we 
know  so  much,  and  whom  we  find  ever  turning  with  heart 
and  mind  toward  the  infinite  and  the  eternal,  clinging  with 
ever-strengthening  hope  and  faith  to  the  conviction  that  he 
is  permitted  to  read  a  part  of  the  thoughts  of  God  expressed 
in  the  order  of  nature,  to  understand  some  of  his  purposes, 
to  share  in  the  warmth  of  his  illimitable  love.  Even  were 
the  wild  dream  of  a  development  of  the  human  brain  from 
the  diffused  nervous  sensibility  of  an  acephal  true,  it  would 
not  make  any  approach  toward  identifying  the  conscious  self 
with  the  brain  it  uses ;  much  less  would  it  make  any  approach 
toward  answering  the  questions  suggested  to  us  by  these 
thoughts  and  affections  which  lay  hold  of  the  infinite.  Ex- 
perience gives  us  only  the  finite ;  imagination  can  build  no 
more  than  the  indefinite ;  but  reason  and  affection  overleap 
both  experience  and  imagination,  and  cling  to  the  eternal 
and  the  infinite  with  an  earnestness  which  is  a  pledge  to  us 
both  of  the  existence  of  God  and  of  our  relationship  to  him. 

There  are,  doubtless,  difficulties  in  the  doctrine  that  men 
are  made  in  the  image  of  God.     We  have  just  alluded  tc 


1874.]  THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY   SURE  37 

one,  the  difficulty,  namely,  of  drawing  any  sharp  distinction 
between  the  intellectual  and  moral  attributes  of  the  lowest 
men  and  of  the  highest  animals.  Another  difficulty  is  found 
in  the  reflex  action  of  the  brain  upon  the  mind.  Our  feelings 
and  our  judgment  vary  with  our  state  of  health,  and  we 
cannot  draw  any  sharp  line  as  the  boundary  of  insanity. 
The  phenomena  of  delirium,  madness,  and  double  conscious- 
ness are  therefore  appealed  to  as  proof  of  the  purely  physical 
origin  of  thought. 

A  slight  consideration  of  a  special  sense,  as  vision  or 
hearing,  may  make  this  difficulty  less  formidable.  In  normal 
sight,  the  retina  is  excited  by  rays  of  light.  In  normal 
imagination  of  a  visible  thing  the  retina  is  affected  by  the 
imagination,  and  may  in  certain  cases  be  so  much  affected 
as  to  cause  a  perception  or  vision  of  the  thing  imagined. 
But  a  third  case  arises,  in  which  the  excitement  of  the  retina, 
from  some  other  cause  than  the  reception  of  light,  causes 
impressions  as  of  light  and  color,  and  then  very  faint  and 
even  unconscious  imaginings  may  give  definite  form  and 
circumscription  to  these  impressions,  thus  making  images  or 
visions.  When  myself  suffering,  many  years  ago,  from 
undue  excitement  of  the  optic  nerve  and  the  appearance  of 
visions,  I  could  in  general  account  for  the  particular  form 
of  the  vision  by  recalling  what  I  had  been  looking  at,  or 
thinking  of,  just  previous  to  the  attack.  Thus  it  may  be  in 
delirium  and  insanity.  The  cerebral  excitement  is  doubtless 
from  physical  causes ;  but  its  form  arises  from  the  effort  of 
the  mind  to  control  it ;  and  it  may  be  that  a  part  of  the 
organ  obeys  the  mind  more  perfectly,  a  part  less  so,  and  thus 
arises  the  apparent  double  consciousness.  The  difficulties 
of  the  subject  are  great ;  but  they  are  vastly  greater  on 
the  purely  material  hypothesis,  and  less  on  the  spiritual 
hypothesis. 

We  may  not  be  able  to  decide  whether  the  human  mind 
spontaneously  originates  the  idea  of  perfection,  or  whether  the 
idea  has  come  through  the  Mosaic  and  the  Christian  revela- 
tions.    But,  be  that  as  it  may,  the  moment  that  the  idea  of 


38  THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.  [April, 

perfection  is  presented  to  the  human  mind,  we  rush  to  the 
conclusion,  and  cannot  be  moved  from  it,  that  the  Creator  is 
perfect,  that  is,  that  nothing  can,  in  imagination  or  reality, 
be  added  to  his  attributes  or  taken  from  them. 

Of  course,  we  can  form  only  a  rational  or  intellectual  con- 
cept of  perfection  ;  not  an  image,  or  sensible  concept.  We 
may,  with  Erigena,  say  that  the  Deity  is  not  wise,  because 
he  is  more  than  wise,  nor  good,  because  he  is  above  all  good- 
ness. We  cannot  say  what  he  is,  because  he  is  more  than 
all  that  we  can  say.  It  was  in  a  spirit  of  the  deepest 
reverence  that  Erigena  added,  "  Deus  ipse  nescit  quid  ille  sit, 
quia  non  est  quid."  Yet  we  know  that  the  perfect  knowledge 
must  include  all  our  knowledge,  that  the  perfect  love  must 
be  the  fount  of  all  earthly  goodness,  and  the  perfect  holiness 
give  us  our  inspirations  of  virtue.  Herbert  Spencer,  refusing 
to  assign  attributes  to  the  First  Cause,  still  expresses  his  faith 
in  the  truthfulness,  faithfulness,  wisdom,  and  beneficence  of 
the  order  of  nature.  The  human  mind  which  has  once 
received  the  idea  of  moral  perfection  in  God  cannot  free 
itself  from  that  idea  by  any  verbal  quibbles  concerning  the 
infinite.  We  know  that  God  is  wise  and  good,  in  exact  pro- 
portion as  we  know  what  wisdom  and  goodness  are,  since  he 
embraces  all  perfections. 

When  we  have  arrived  at  the  recognition  of  God's  presence, 
and  of  his  moral  attributes,  we  long  to  speak  to  him,  and 
cannot  be  content  without  thanksgiving,  praise,  and  prayer. 
The  reason,  puzzled  by  the  infinite  character  of  the  Deity, 
brings  objections  to  these  acts  of  piety,  suggests  that  forgive- 
ness is  impossible,  penalty  inevitable,  thanks  and  praise  in- 
different to  the  Infinite  One,  grace  and  mercy  out  of  the 
power  of  an  unchangeable  and  eternal  Being.  Still,  the 
heart,  when  deeply  moved,  always  sweeps  away  these  objec- 
tions of  reason,  bids  her  reconsider  the  problem,  and  be 
sure  that  God  is  our  God.  This  testimony  of  the  heart  is 
surely  of  more  weight  than  any  of  the  flimsy  deductions  of 
pantheistic  logic.  There  is  nothing  in  sound  reason  to  pre- 
vent the   heart  receiving  the  comforting  assurance  of  that 


1874.]  THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY   SURE.  39 

word  which  was  made  flesh  in  Bethlehem,  that  God  is  our 
Father,  ready  to  forgive  our  sins,  and  to  help  us  in  our 
weakness,  upon  the  simple  and  reasonable  conditions  of 
turning  from  our  sins,  with  faith  in  his  holy  Messenger. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  objections  urged  against  religious 
doctrines  on  account  of  what  is  called  the  relativity  of 
knowledge.  Every  correct  form  of  reasoning  or  inference 
may  be  described  as  essentially  the  same  process.  We  start 
with  two  truths  that  are  either  absolutely  self-evident,  or  else 
that  are  truths  of  conclusion  previously  established.  From 
their  self-evident  relation  arises  a  third  proposition,  which  is 
the  inference.  Knowledge  thus  consists  wholly  of  truths 
which  are  either  self-evident,  or  connected  with  self-evident 
truths  by  self-evident  steps. 

But  what  truth  is  self-evident  ?  The  experiential  school 
answer  that  we  give  the  name  self-evident  to  truths  which 
we  cannot,  even  for  an  instant,  suppose  untrue,  and  that  this 
inability  arises  from  a  uniformity  of  experience  in  ourselves 
and  in  our  ancestors ;  that,  for  example,  we  think  two 
straight  lines  cannot  inclose  a  space,  because  neither  we  nor 
our  ancestors,  from  the  days  when  they  were  zoophytes,  ever 
saw  two  straight  lines  inclose  a  space ;  an  explanation  which 
explains  nothing,  but  merely  covers  the  problem  with  words. 
Whatever  is  the  object  of  direct  sight,  that  is  self-evident. 
Forms  of  matter  are  the  objects  of  direct  sensation  ;  forms 
of  spiritual  truth  and  forms  of  space  and  time  are  the 
objects  of  direct  intuition.  What  is  thus  seen  by  the  in- 
ward or  the  outward  sense  is  self-evident ;  we  believe  because 
we  see. 

But  all  human  seeing  is  a  partial  seeing.  The  image  in 
our  mind  is  affected  by  many  circumstances,  by  qualities  not 
in  the  object,  but  in  the  medium,  and  in  the  subject,  the 
seer.  What  is  seen  depends  much  upon  him  who  sees ;  and 
mis  is  one  doctrine  of  the  relativity  of  knowledge.  Our 
knowledge  bears  a  relation  to  ourselves,  and  is  necessarily 
affected  by  our  own  state.  All  that  we  know,  or  can  know, 
it  is  affirmed,  is,  how  things  look  to  us,  not  what  they  really 

Vol.  XXXI.  No.  122.  28 


40  THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.  [April, 

are.  How  much  less,  therefore,  can  our  views  of  the  Ulti- 
mate Cause  of  all  have  the  faintest  likeness  to  the  object ! 

But  space  and  time  and  number  are  conceived  clearly  in 
proportion  to  our  ability  and  our  culture ;  in  other  words, 
our  knowledge  of  them  is  relative.  Nevertheless,  we  have 
absolute  knowledge  of  their  properties  —  that  the  extension 
of  space  includes  distance  in  manifold  directions,  and  the 
protension  of  time  points  only  to  the  future  and  to  the  past. 
Thus,  also,  in  things  visible,  our  senses  never  deceive  us ; 
we  are  deceived  by  our  judgment,  our  reasoning,  on  the 
sensation,  and,  by  sufficient  care,  we  can  correct  our  judg- 
ment. It  is  a  vulgar  error  to  suppose  that  those  born  blind 
have  more  acute  hearing,  and  those  born  deaf  sharper  sight, 
than  others;  it  is  not  that  their  senses  are  more  sensitive, 
but  that  their  judgment  on  their  sensations  has  been  more 
exercised,  and  is  therefore  better  trained.  Sense  always 
gives  a  true  report,  and  it  is  we  who  sometimes  misinterpret 
the  report.  Of  this  liability  to  error  we  should  not  complain, 
since  the  pleasure  of  success  always  lies  in  the  possibility  of 
failure. 

Thus,  also,  in  spiritual  things,  our  intuitions  give  us  truth 
so  far  as  they  give  us  anything,  and  that  truth  is  related  as 
directly  to  the  object  of  intuition  as  it  is  to  us.  We  know 
the  elements  of  psychology  and  theology  positively,  by  direct 
intuition,  and  cannot  suppose  there  is  any  uncertainty  con- 
cerning them.  But  our  inferences  from  these  intuitions 
may  be  very  far  from  correct,  unless  we  have  proceeded  with 
cautious,  sound  judgment. 

Our  intuitions  make  us  absolutely  certain  of  the  likeness 
of  other  men  to  ourselves ;  yet  we  may  fall  into  gross  mis- 
judgments  of  men,  unless  we  limit  this  truth  of  intuition  by 
the  observed  truth  that  men  also  differ  from  us  and  from 
each  other. 

In  arguing  from  truths  of  consciousness  to  the  attributes 
of  the  Deity,  we  should,  of  course,  be  still  more  cautious. 
We  see  that  there  must  be  an  Ultimate  or  First  Cause, 
Almighty,  Omnipresent,  Eternal,  Omniscient,  Holy,  Benefi- 


1874.]  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.  41 

cent,  from  whose  attributes  our  own  feebler  powers  and 
virtues  by  his  inspiration  spring.  These  grand  truths  are 
not  subjective  illusions  ;  they  are  not  the  projection  of  our 
own  likeness  on  the  misty  universe,  and  mistaken  by  us  for 
the  likeness  of  the  Creator.  The  invariable  and  universal 
laws  of  nature,  the  expressions  of  the  divine  thought,  were 
in  nature,  intelligible,  rational,  conforming  to  the  a  priori 
laws  of  space  and  time,  countless  ages  before  man's  poor 
geometry  and  algebra  partially  deciphered  them.  Man  is, 
then,  the  child  of  God  ;  we  know  with  absolute  certainty 
that  our  minds,  seeing  the  laws  of  space,  have  some  likeness 
to  his  mind  who  subjected  matter  to  those  laws ;  and  we 
believe  with  immovable  faith  that  our  hearts  and  souls  par- 
take in  the  same  divine  likeness.  We  are,  however,  to  take 
heed  lest  we  deserve  the  reproach  which  the  Psalmist  repre- 
sents the  Lord  as  uttering :  "  Thou  thoughtest  that  I  was 
altogether  such  a  one  as  thyself." 

But  modern  speculators  on  the  infinite  and  the  absolute, 
instead  of  reproving  the  wicked  for  thinking  the  Lord  alto- 
gether such  as  they,  reprove  sharply  the  righteous  for  think- 
ing that  the  best  man  can  have  any  likeness  to  the  Deity.  It 
is  as  degrading  to  the  Infinite  Being,  they  tell  us,  to  pro- 
nounce it  spiritual,  wise,  or  holy,  as  it  is  to  pronounce  it 
sensual,  foolish,  or  wicked. 

Yet  wisdom,  holiness,  love,  will,  are  positive  powers,  of 
which  we  can  conceive  indefinite  increase,  and  to  which  we 
see  no  inevitable  limit ;  while  sensuality,  folly,  malice,  sin, 
are  in  their  own  nature  limited.  We  cannot  conceive  their 
indefinite  expansion,  for,  if  we  imagine  them  increasing  in- 
definitely, we  see  that  they  lead  rapidly  toward  an  utterly 
insane  or  idiotic  condition  of  mind.  The  Satan  of  Milton, 
even  the  Mephistopheles  of  Goethe,  have  many  fine  qualities. 
Without  this  blending  of  goodness  in  the  bad,  the  poet  could 
not  paint  a  devil,  any  more  than  the  artist  could  produce  a 
portrait,  using  only  black  pigment,  upon  a  black  ground. 

While,  therefore,  no  conception  of  the  Infinite  Cause  can 
be  adequate,  and  no  human  language  can  make  a  statement 


42  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.  [April, 

concerning  him  that  shall  be  wholly  true, — that  is,  incapable 
of  being  misunderstood,  —  it  is  yet  more  emphatically  true 
that  no  deductions  from  our  definitions  of  the  infinite  and 
the  absolute  can  be  valid,  unless  by  accident ;  and  that  the 
validity  of  such  deductions  as  have  been  made  by  Kant, 
Hamilton,  Mansel,  and  Herbert  Spencer,  from  the  nature  of 
the  infinite,  are  to  be  tested  by  the  inductions  of  natural 
theology,  rather  than  the  inductions  by  such  deductions. 
The  only  ground  on  which  the  validity  of  the  inductions  and 
intuitions  of  natural  theology  can  be  assailed  is  that  of  the 
relativity  of  knowledge ;  and  to  make  the  assault  seem  suc- 
cessful, the  position  of  the  assailant  must  be  taken  so  far  to 
the  left  as  to  leave  him  in  utter  and  complete  scepticism, 
doubting  the  axioms  of  mathematics,  and  uncertain  of  his 
own  existence. 

If  we  have  any  warrant  for  believing  in  our  own  existence, 
in  the  reality  of  space  and  time,  in  the  certainty  of  their 
relations,  in  the  existence  of  matter,  in  the  certainty  of  its 
simplest  laws,  in  the  being  of  our  fellow-men,  or  in  their 
general  likeness  to  us,  then  we  have  the  same  warrant  for 
inferring  some  likeness  in  man  to  his  Maker.  The  First 
Cause  is  not  wholly  inscrutable ;  and  blended  as  our  ideas 
of  him  may  be  with  errors  of  our  own,  they  must  contain 
also  something  of  his  truth.  Our  ideas  of  God  may  not  be 
as  adequate  as  our  ideas  of  space  and  time;  but  they  contain 
truth  concerning  him,  and  concerning  our  relation  to  him. 
All  thinkers  concede  that  human  reason  is  competent  to 
discover  the  existence  of  an  Ultimate  Cause,  to  form  the 
inductions  of  its  Being,  its  Causal  Energy  or  Power,  its 
Omnipresence,  and  Eternity.  Our  warrant  for  these  induc- 
tions is  what  Herbert  Spencer  calls  his  universal  postulate. 
We  cannot,  even  for  an  instant,  imagine  that  there  is  not 
a  Power  which  causes  all  things,  everywhere  and  always 
acting. 

All  writers  (if  we  except  the  eccentric  pessimists)  also 
concede  that  "  there  is  no  vice  in  the  constitution  of  things  " 
—  that  intelligible  law  rules  throughout  all  the  universe,  — 


1874.]  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.  43 

to  the  furthest  stars,  in  the  minute  intricacy  of  molecular 
structure,  in  the  relation  of  part  to  part  and  of  all  parts  to 
the  whole,  —  precisely  as  if  the  whole  universe,  both  of  mind 
and  matter,  were  the  expression  of  mathematical,  physical, 
and  moral  ideas.  The  human  mind,  seeing  this  perfect 
intelligibility  of  the  effects,  cannot  refrain  from  assigning 
intelligence  to  the  cause ;  seeing  the  rational  order  of  all 
motion,  cannot  doubt  that  the  movement  is  ultimately  guided 
by  reason.  There  is  a  necessity  upon  us  of  adding  to  the 
four  attributes  of  Being,  Power,  Omnipresence,  Eternity,  that 
of  Knowledge  or  Wisdom. 

But,  said  a  friend  to  us,  "You  have  not  tried  long  enough. 
The  positive  philosophy  is  still  young.  After  sixty  or  seventy 
thousand  years  of  effort  to  refrain  from  this  teleological 
absurdity,  we  shall  be  able  to  refrain  easily,  and  acknowledge 
the  First  Cause  as  wholly  inscrutable."  We  reminded  him 
that  his  supposition  was  invalidating  the  universal  postulate 
of  his  idol.  "  Very  well,"  he  replied,  "  let  it  fall."  Then 
everything  falls  ;  we  are  in  chaos ;  we  do  not  know  our 
existence,  nor  that  we  doubt  our  existence ;  there  is  no 
argument  for  or  against  any  truth  whatever ;  the  height  of 
philosophy  has  become  the  height  of  folly.  To  suppose  that 
what  has  been  demonstrated  as  true  to  human  thought 
to-day  can  be  false  to  human  thought  in  any  future,  is  to 
deny  the  possibility  of  any  knowledge  of  anything,  now  or 
hereafter. 

Herbert  Spencer  himself  brings  to  bear  a  different  argu- 
ment against  teleological  views.  He  says  that  the  Infinite, 
Ultimate  Cause  is  without  the  necessity  of  planning,  delib- 
erating, contriving ;  these  are  implied  in  thought ;  therefore 
we  must  not  degrade  the  Ultimate  Cause  by  attributing 
thought  to  it ;  that  he  calls  a  carpenter  theory  of  creation. 
But  this  is  a  trebly  unreasonable  attempt  of  Spencer  to 
invalidate  an  induction  sanctioned  by  his  universal  postulate. 
He  uses  a  contemptuous  nickname,  instead  of  argument ;  he 
assails  an  induction  which  by  the  universal  postulate  is  as 
certain  as  an  intuition ;  and  he  attempts  to  test  it  by  dcduc- 


44  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.  [April, 

tions  from  the  infinite  —  deductions  that  can  be  true  only  by 
accident,  if  true  at  all. 

The  fallacy  of  his  argument  may  be  shown  by  a  parody  of 
it.  We  only  know  a  finite  universe,  finite  in  time  and  space ; 
the  universe  cannot  therefore  be  produced,  as  Spencer  says 
it  is,  by  an  Infinite  Ultimate  Cause ;  for  such  a  Cause  could 
only  produce  infinite  effects ;  it  is  degrading  to  an  Infinite 
Cause  to  suppose  it  creating  the  finite  world  revealed  to  our 
microscopes  and  telescopes. 

The  same  friend,  an  admirer  of  Herbert  Spencer,  who 
thought  that  we  must  try  for  sixty  or  seventy  thousand 
years  to  make  his  absurdities  seem  sensible  before  we  could 
pronounce  them  absurdities,  furthermore  thought  that  the 
intelligible  order  of  the  cosmos  need  not  Joe  attributed  to  an 
intelligent  Ultimate  Cause,  but  to  intelligence  in  the  atoms. 
In  other  words,  after  theology  has  painfully  arrived,  by 
thousands  of  years  of  culture,  at  a  firm,  intelligible  mono- 
theism, this  friend  wishes  to  leap  back  at  one  bound  to  a 
fetichism  incomparably  more  confusing  and  inconceivable 
than  any  that  ever  entered  the  untaught  mind.  He  would 
Hake  Leibnitz's  sublime  and  wonderful  monadology ;  but, 
before  accepting  it,  strike  off  the  head  of  that  marvellous 
hierarchy,  and  reduce  it  to  chaos  —  a  chaos  in  which,  how- 
ever, there  is  the  marvellous  order  that  each  one  of  the 
innumerable  atoms,  or  monads,  is  possessed  of  immeasurable 
wisdom,  so  that  each  guides  itself  by  a  law  that  embraces 
the  action  of  the  whole. 

To  recapitulate :  Our  knowledge  must  consist  either  of 
truths  which  are  self-evident,  the  direct  objects  of  sight,  or 
of  truths  inferred  from  self-evident  truths  by  self-evident 
steps  of  reasoning.  By  these  processes  of  direct  perception 
and  of  logical  inference  we  have  built  up  the  mathematical 
and  physical  sciences,  and  made  some  advances  in  historical, 
political,  and  psychologic  sciences.  But  when  we  attempt 
to  proceed  in  precisely  the  same  manner  in  theology,  we 
are  sometimes  told  that  our  labor  will  here  be  vain  ;  that 
we  cannot  arrive  at  any  knowledge  of  divine  things  ;  that  all 


1874.]  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.  45 

knowledge  is  relative  —  not  cognizant  of  things,  but  only  of 
their  relations  —  not  even  of  relations  in  themselves,  but 
only  as  related  to  us ;  and  the  knowledge  of  the  relations 
of  finites  could  not,  if  attainable,  lead  to  any  knowledge 
of  the  infinite  God. 

But  all  this  outcry  against  teleological  arguments,  and 
against  natural  theology,  arises  from  a  confusion  of  thought. 
The  objectors  argue  from  the  infinite  to  show  that  the  theo- 
logian should  not  argue  to  the  infinite ;  whereas,  as  the 
example  of  the  mathematics  illustrates,  arguments  from  the 
infinite  are  never  trustworthy,  while  arguments  to  the  infinite 
are  frequently  sound  and  valuable. 

We  cannot  know  relations  without  knowing,  to  some 
extent,  the  things  related.  The  fact  that  we  cannot  know 
things  except  as  related  to  each  other  and  to  us  and  to  our 
modes  of  apprehension,  does  not  destroy  our  knowledge  of 
ourselves  and  of  our  surroundings.  We  know  ourselves  as 
thinking,  feeling,  hoping,  fearing,  loving,  hating,  desiring, 
willing,  —  all  which  imply  objects,  and  imply  some  knowledge 
both  of  ourselves  and  of  the  objects.  We  know  space  not  in 
its  infinite  extent,  but  in  its  parts,  as  we  divide  it  in  an  act 
of  imagination,  stimulated  to  that  act  by  the  perception  of 
motion.  We  know  space  only  as  its  parts  are  related  to 
each  other  in  distance  and  direction  ;  but  this  implies  some 
knowledge  of  space,  of  distance,  and  of  direction.  We  know 
matter  only  in  its  relations  to  its  own  parts  and  to  our  sensa- 
tions ;  but  this  does  not  deny,  but  implies,  a  knowledge  of 
matter ;  so  far  as  we  know  the  relations  of  any  thing,  we 
know  the  thing  in  its  relations. 

Thus,  also,  we  reply  to  the  further  objection,  that  we  do 
not  even  know  the  relation  of  things,  but  only  the  relation 
of  the  relation  to  us.  If  science  shows  that  greenness  arises 
from  a  mechanical  condition  which  causes  light  to  be  re- 
turned from  a  body  in  waves  of  a  specific  length,  then 
science  only  shows  that  the  testimony  of  the  eye  is  more 
valuable  than  we  had  before  supposed.  When  the  chemist 
dips  a  platinum  wire  into  a  substance  and  thrusts  it  into  the 


46  THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF   THEOLOGY  SURE.  [April, 

flame,  the  new  play  of  colors  which  arises  tells  hiui  just  what 
the  eye  alone  can  tell,  and  told  before  the  noon  of  this  cen- 
tury, namely,  the  shades  of  color  in  the  flame ;  but  it  also 
tells  him,  now,  the  chemical  constituents  of  the  substance 
into  which  the  wire  was  dipped,  and  the  lengths  of  the  waves 
produced  by  each  element  thus  excited  by  heat.  The  old 
testimony  of  the  eye  to  the  shades  of  color  is  not  invalidated 
by  the  new  inferences  which  science  draws  from  the  shades. 
And  if  sixty  or  seventy  thousand  years  hence  the  human  eye 
has  altered  to  perceive  new  shades,  or  to  be  color-blind  to 
those  now  seen,  that  will  not  affect  the  truth  that  to  the 
normal  eye  of  to-day  the  shades  are  what  they  seem  to  be. 
As  to  the  colors  having  no  likeness  to  the  chemical  elements, 
greenness  no  likeness  to  grass,  what  of  it?.  No  one  supposes 
that  by  saying  grass  is  green  we  mean  to  say  anything  else 
than  to  say  that  when  grass  is  seen,  in  common  daylight,  it 
affects  us  in  a  way  that  makes  us  say  it  looks  green. 

Still,  the  objection  is  urged,  that  even  if  the  things  per- 
ceived by  sense  have  any  objective  reality,  they  are  never- 
theless only  relations  of  finites,  and  give  us  no  glimpses  of 
the  Infinite.  The  Infinite  and  Absolute  cannot  stand  in 
relation  to  the  finite ;  for  that  would  render  him  finite  and 
relative.  Again  we  reply,  that  the  objector,  urging  the 
impossibility  of  our  knowing  the  Infinite,  assumes,  neverthe- 
less, that  he  knows  it;  for  he  argues  from  its  properties. 
He  thus  is  guilty  of  the  fault  of  which  he  falsely  accuses  us 
—  the  fault  of  assuming  to  know  the  Infinite. 
/  All  the  finite  things  which  we  see  have  the  character  of 
effects;  and  we  see,  by  direct  intuition,  that  they  are  the 
|  effects  of  a  cause.  All  the  universe,  as  far  as  we  know  it,  is 
in  perfect  unity,  under  the  domain  of  universal  laws ;  and 
we  are  thus  irresistibly  impelled  to  ascribe  all  effects  ulti- 
mately to  a  single  First  Cause.  The  telescope  reveals  no 
limit  to  the  visible  universe ;  and  we  naturally  rush  to  the 
conclusion  that,  even  if  the  universe  be  limited,  the  First 
Cause  is  unlimited  and  infinite.  The  moral  instincts  lead 
to  the  induction  that  the  Infinite  One  is  in  all  attributes  per- 


1874.]  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.  47 

feet — an  induction  confirmed  by  the  unconquerable  strength 
with  which  reason  clings  to  it  when  once  formed.  But  if, 
when  we  have  arrived  at  the  belief  that  the  First  Cause  is 
infinite  and  absolute,  we  infer  hence  that  it  can  stand  related 
to  nothing  finite,  we  stultify  ourselves ;  destroying  the  very 
foundations  on  which  we  had  built  our  conclusion.  A  cause 
must  stand  related  to  its  effects,  and  to  each  effect,  whatever 
may  be  our  perplexity  in  attempts  to  picture  the  Infinite. 
The  First  Cause  stands  related  not  only  to  the  whole  universe 
as  its  effect,  but  to  each  part  of  the  universe.  This  is  self- 
evident,  and  its  truth  cannot  be  overthrown  by  the  not  more 
true  induction  that  the  First  Cause  is  infinite. 

The  First  Cause  is  related  to  all  its  effects.  The  order  of 
nature  is  rational  and  beneficent ;  hence  we  infer  wisdom 
and  love  in  the  Creator.  Our  conceptions  of  wisdom  and  love 
are  inadequate  ;  but  they  give  us  something  real,  something 
valuable,  and  something  which,  like  the  conception  of  color, 
can  be  gained  only  from  consciousness.  All  that  we  can 
know  of  a  fellow-man's  wisdom  and  love  is  by  observing  his 
acts,  and  interpreting  them  by  our  own  consciousness.  We 
assume  a  likeness  in  his  consciousness  to  ours,  because  there 
is  a  likeness  in  his  acts  to  ours.  There  is  no  valid  objection 
to  taking  the  same  line  of  argument,  mutatis  mutandis,  in 
reference  to  God.  Thus  much  we  indubitably  know :  we 
know  that  all  things  in  the  universe  are  related  together, 
not  only  where  there  is  a  genetic  relation  of  secondary 
causation,  but  also  in  parts  in  which  we  cannot  see  the  pos- 
sibility of  genetic  connection.  All  things  are  related  to- 
gether by  the  presence  in  all  of  the  same  a  priori  ideas  of 
space  and  time,  the  same  abstract  ratios  of  number.  We 
know  that  all  effects  are  produced  with  the  least  possible 
expenditure  of  force ;  that  all  means  are  most  perfectly 
adapted  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  effected  ends.  Why, 
then,  hesitate  to  conclude  that  this  intellectual  form  of  the 
universe  came  from  intellect ;  that  the  means  were  intended 
to  accomplish  the  ends,  the  forms  and  laws  to  embody  the 
ideas  ?     We  also  know  that  these  ends  are  beneficent,  and 

Vol.  XXXI.  No.  122.  29 


48  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.  [April, 

that  the  more  thorough  our  examination  of  the  course  of 
nature  and  of  history,  the  more  firm  our  faith  in  the  adapta- 
tion of  all  things  to  the  highest  development  of  man  and  the 
greatest  happiness  of  lower  creatures.  So  manifest  is  this 
excellence  of  the  universe  in  its  relation  to  our  needs,  or  of 
the  adaptation  of  our  needs  to  the  universe,  that  a  majority 
of  philosophers,  including  many  of  no  mean  power,  have 
maintained  that  the  adaptation  is  the  most  perfect  possible. 
Shall  we  repress  our  swelling  feelings  of  gratitude  and  love 
and  loyalty  toward  the  First  Cause  of  all,  who  has  made  this 
world  so  beautiful,  so  commodious,  so  full  of  instruction,  so 
full  and  varied  in  opportunity,  so  majestic  and  inspiring  ?  — 
shall  we  repress  our  thanks  and  adoration,  because  our  un- 
derstandings cannot  comprehend  how  the -Infinite  and  Abso- 
lute One  can  stand  related  to  our  special  surroundings,  or  to 
our  individual  souls  ? 

To  do  so  would  be  to  affront  the  best  and  holiest  instincts 
of  our  nature  on  the  strength  of  a  mere  inference  —  an 
inference,  too,  which  we  have  no  logical  warrant  to  draw 
from  the  premises.  Man  is  the  child  of  God,  and  may  justly 
argue  from  his  own  thoughts  and  feelings  to  the  intent  and 
purpose  of  his  Creator.  It  will  require,  of  course,  great  care 
in  our  analysis  of  our  own  powers  to  decide  which  can  and 
which  cannot  be  logically  carried  to  an  infinite  extent,  and 
assigned  to  the  Deity.  It  may  be  a  task  beyond  the  ability 
of  mortal  man  to  show  precisely  where  the  dividing  line 
between  the  spiritual  and  the  sensual  runs.  From  this 
difficulty  of  deciding  where,  in  the  gradual  ascent  from 
sensuality  to  spirituality,  the  passage  is  made,  some  per- 
sons infer  that  there  is  no  real  division,  and  that  the  ap- 
parent spirituality  of  our  higher  thoughts  is  only  a  refined 
and  sublimated  sensuality ;  that  in  the  highest  flights  of 
devotion  we  are  simply  modifying  and  recombining  impres- 
sions of  sense. 

In  reply  to  this  argument  drawn  from  the  apparent  blend- 
ing of  the  two  parts  of  human  nature  into  one  connected 
series  of  functions  and  faculties,  we  must  first  observe  that 


1874.]  THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF   THEOLOGY  SURE.  49 

this  argument,  so  popular  at  the  present  day  with  writers  on 
natural  history,  is  not  to  be  implicitly  trusted.  The  forms 
of  the  elastic  curve,  beginning  with  a  straight  line,  lead  by 
an  infinite  series  of  imperceptible  variations,  through  fan- 
tastic figures,  to  a  circle.  The  circle  may  then  lead,  through 
all  the  conic  sections,  to  two  intersecting  straight  lines.  The 
circle  may  thus  stand  at  the  dividing  point  between  two  scries 
of  wholly  dissimilar  forms,  and  belong  to  both  series ;  and 
if  the  two  series  are  arranged  as  one,  no  eye  can  detect  a 
break  anywhere  in  the  whole.  Thus  with  the  series  of 
thoughts  and  feelings  which  lead  from  sensual  to  spiritual 
states,  we  may  not  detect  the  exact  position  of  the  ambiguous 
point ;  but  we  know  that  there  is  a  break  somewhere,  since 
the  antithesis  between  mind  and  matter  is  the  fundamental 
distinction  in  philosophy. 

The  sensational  school  try  to  persuade  themselves  that  the 
capacity  for  conscious  thought  lies  latent,  diffused  through 
matter,  called  into  manifest  action  through  organization  ; 
organization  being  effected  by  some  general  force.  But  no 
man  persuades  himself  that  the  unorganized  clod  is  thinking 
or  feeling.  Nor  can.  any  amount  of  effort  make  even  a 
sensationalist  think  of  consciousness  as  a  mere  mode  of 
motion  —  a  power  entering  into  the  equations  of  the  corre- 
lation of  forces.  Mind  and  matter  are  separated  from  each 
other  by  the  whole  diameter  of  being ;  and,  although  we 
cannot  image  to  ourselves  a  spirit  wholly  disembodied,  yet  it 
is  even  more  impossible  to  image  to  ourselves  spirit  as  merely 
material,  or  matter  as  having  spiritual  powers.  Yet  both 
spirit  and  matter  are  always  recognized  in  every  act  of  con- 
sciousness ;  our  imagery  is  all  drawn  from  sensation  ;  and, 
while  we  are  compelled  to  believe  in  the  supersensible,  wo 
cannot  image  it.  This  is  the  truth  which  misleads  Herbert 
Spencer  into  his  grand  error  of  saying  that  because  we  can 
form  no  image  of  the  First  Cause,  therefore  the  First  Cause 
is  unknown  and  unknowable.  "We  form  no  image  of  our- 
selves, as  distinct  from  our  body  ;  yet  we  know  ourselves  in 
consciousness  as  perceiving,  feeling,  desiring,  willing,  ruling 


50  THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY   SURE.  [April, 

matter,  and  not  ourselves   material.     We  know   ourselves, 
through  consciousness,  as  to  a  limited  extent,  lords  of  that 
world  of  matter  which  we  know  through  sensation,  and  to 
which  we  cannot  attribute  consciousness.     We  form  designs 
by  the  intellect,  and  then,  by  a  decision  of  the  will,  bend  the 
forces  of  matter  to  the  fulfilment  of  our  designs.     Our  spirit 
thus  asserts  its  supremacy  over  nature,  and  takes,  to  a  limited 
extent,  the  control  of  its  surroundings.     On  the  other  hand, 
our  surroundings  to  a  limited  extent  control  us.     Fatigue 
brings  sleep,  or  even  syncope ;  disease  brings  delirium,  coma, 
and  death.     Drunkenness,  poisoning,  and  the  hygienic  effects 
of  diet,  are  further  evidences  of  the  control  which  physical 
conditions  have  over  the  brain  and  other  bodily  organs  of 
our  conscious  life.     Comte,  the  French  founder  of  what  he 
called  Positive  Philosophy,  argues  that  because  the  functions 
of  life  depend  upon  the  physical  forces,  therefore  they  are 
produced  by  those  forces ;  but  the  argument  is  transparently 
weak ;  the  conditions  necessary  for  the  manifestation  of  an 
effect  are  not  to  be  assumed  as  the  cause  of  the  effect.     The 
fundamental  antithesis  of  philosophy,   the    discreteness   of 
mind  from  matter,  stands  unassailable  by  any  discovery  of 
inductive   science.     And   of  these   two,  spirit   and  matter, 
spirit  is  master  —  master,  so  far  as  our  spirits  are  concerned, 
to  a  very  limited  degree,  yet  to  a  degree  wonderful  and  grand 
to  our  limited  sight. 

These  two  kinds  of  substance,  mind  and  matter,  are  the 
only  kind  revealed  to  us  in  consciousness  ;  and  the  classifi- 
cation seems  exhaustive,  since  a  thing  is  either  capable  of 
conscious  thought  or  incapable.  If  capable,  we  call  it  spirit, 
however  high  it  may  stand  in  the  scale  of  being  above  our 
spirits;  but  if  incapable  of  conscious  thought,  we  call  it 
matter,  however  much  it  may  differ  from  things  sensible ;  as 
the  ether. 

The  universe  of  being  we  thus  necessarily  divide  into  spirit 
and  matter ;  and  we  cannot  hesitate  to  which  we  ought  to 
assign  that  Ultimate  Cause,  whose  existence  we  must  assume 
so  long  as  we  assume  our  own.     Spiritual  causes  approximate 


1874.]  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.  51 

more  nearly  to  the  First  Cause  than  mechanical  causes  can. 
There  is  no  argument  concealed  in  Spencer's  nickname  of 
the  carpenter  theory.  He  not  only  acknowledges,  but  main 
tains  that  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  believing  in  the  existence 
of  a  First  Cause.  But  we  are  under  a  logical  necessity  of 
assuming  that  every  existent  being  is  either  conscious  or 
unconscious,  and  it  is  evidently  and  incomparably  more  rea- 
sonable to  assume  that  the  First  Cause  is  conscious.  Spencer 
asks,  Why  not  suppose  the  Ultimate  Cause  has  a  mode  of 
being  infinitely  transcending  the  human  modes  of  conscious- 
ness ?  We  do  suppose  it ;  all  theists  suppose  it.  We  only 
say  that  it  is  unreasonable  to  assume  that  the  Being  who 
infinitely  surpasses  all  our  conceivable  modes  of  consciousness 
can  be  unconscious.  Therefore,  under  the  necessity  of  our 
minds  to  assign  some  attributes  to  a  being  whose  existence 
is  pressed  upon  our  attention,  we  assign  consciousness, 
rather  than  unconsciousness,  to  the  First  Cause.  And,  under 
this  logical  compulsion  to  recognize  the  likeness  of  our  souls 
to  the  Infinite  Creator,  our  hearts  swell  with  more  than  a 
mere  awe  of  the  unknowable ;  they  swell  with  gratitude, 
reverence,  adoration,  and  loyal  love.  We  are  not  to  assign 
our  weaknesses  and  defects  to  God ;  and  we  must  carefully 
apply  the  test  already  alluded  to,  and  not  assign  to  the  Deity 
any  attribute  which,  like  sensual  appetite,  or  hatred,  or 
malice,  is  incapable  of  indefinite  expansion.  The  moral 
instincts  are  also  a  guide ;  for  we  cannot,  without  violence 
to  our  highest  intuitions,  assume  aught  else  than  perfect 
holiness  in  God. 

The  recognition  of  moral  distinctions,  in  their  highest 
sense,  implies  the  freedom  of  the  human  will ;  and,  inas- 
much as  Herbert  Spencer,  who  at  present  seems  to  be  a 
prominent  leader  in  the  English  and  American  anti-theistic 
schools,  denies  its  freedom,  it  may  be  well  to  pause  a  moment 
to  look  at  his  twofold  argument.  "  Psychical  changes,"  he 
says,  "  either  conform  to  law,  or  they  do  not.  If  they  do 
not  conform  to  law,  this  work,  in  common  with  all  works  on 
the  subject,  is  sheer  nonsense ;  no  science  of  psychology  is 


52  THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF   THEOLOGY   SURE.  [April, 

possible.  If  they  do  conform  to  law,  there  cannot  be  any 
such  thing  as  free-will."  This  is  his  first  argument,  in  his 
own  language.  It  rests  on  the  assumption  which  every  tyro 
in  mathematics  knows  to  be  false,  that  fixed  laws  admit  no 
choice.  The  number  of  roots  in  an  equation  may  even  be 
infinite.  Organic  bodies  are  mostly  in  unstable  equilibrium, 
and  may  turn  in  any  direction,  and  yet  obey  one  law. 

His  second  argument  is  still  more  astonishing  in  its  weak- 
ness. "  Either  the  ego,"  are  his  words,  "  which  is  supposed 
to  determine  or  will  the  action,  is  some  state  of  conscious- 
ness, or  it  is  not.  If  it  is  not  some  state  of  consciousness,  it 
is  something  of  which  we  are  unconscious — something, 
therefore,  that  is  unknown  to  us,  —  something,  therefore,  of 
whose  existence  we  neither  have  nor  can  have  any  evidence, 
—  something,  therefore,  which  it  is  absurd  to  suppose 
existing." 

What  a  wonderful  series  of  false  inferences !  "  If  not 
some  state  of  consciousness,  it  is  something  of  which  we  are 
unconscious."  And  this  from  a  realist,  who  believes  in  the 
outward  world !  According  to  this  argument,  he  should  be 
a  thorough  idealist,  claiming  that  our  state  of  consciousness 
is  all  of  which  we  are  conscious,  and  that  it  is  absurd  to 
suppose  anything  else  existing,  either  ourselves  as  either 
knowing  or  doubting,  or  any  other  being  knowing  or  doubt- 
ing, in  our  state  of  consciousness ;  the  present  state  of  con- 
sciousness, according  to  this  argument,  constituting  not  only 
the  actual,  but  the  potential,  universe. 

Let  us,  however,  pass  this,  as  a  slip  of  attention  in  our 
author,  and  take  up  the  second  inference.  "  Something  of 
which  we  are  unconscious — something,  therefore,  which  is 
unknown  to  us."  Would  Spencer,  when  not  dazzled  by  the 
red  rag  of  theology,  maintain  that  our  knowledge  is  limited 
by  consciousness  —  that  we  have,  for  example,  no  knowledge 
of  the  sun,  no  knowledge  of  oxygen?  Material  things  of 
which  we  are  unconscious  are  known  by  their  effects,  or 
property  of  producing  effects,  of  which  we  are  conscious. 
Thus  with  the  ego.     We  are  not  directly  conscious  of  the 


1874.]  THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.  53 

ego ;  but  we  are  conscious  of  its  effects  in  the  state  of  con- 
sciousness. We  know  ourselves,  precisely  as  we  know  ma- 
terial objects,  by  the  attributes  or  properties.  The  object 
has  the  property  of  exciting  the  sensation  or  suggesting  the 
thought ;  the  ego  has  the  property  of  feeling  the  sensation 
and  entertaining  the  thought. 

The  third  of  this  extraordinary  series  of  inferences  is  still 
more  glaringly  false  :  "  Something  that  is  unknown,  — ■ 
something,  therefore,  of  whose  existence  we  neither  have  nor 
can  have  any  evidence."  That  is  to  say,  no  advance  in 
knowledge  ever  has  been,  or  ever  will  be,  possible  for  the 
human  race. 

And  the  fourth  step  is  equally  monstrous.  "  Of  whose 
existence  we  can  have  no  evidence  —  something,  therefore, 
which  it  is  absurd  to  suppose  existing."  In  other  words,  all 
possible  existence  lies  open  to  human  knowledge  —  a  large 
assumption,  especially  for  one  who  rebukes  the  theologian 
for  presuming  to  have  some  faint  perception  of  verities  that 
lie  above  the  reach  of  the  outward  senses. 

These  are  the  two  arguments  by  which  Herbert  Spencer 
attempts  to  show  that  our  human  consciousness  of  freedom 
and  sense  of  moral  obligation  are  illusions.  He  adds  a  third 
consideration,  which  is  too  verbose  for  quotation,  and  which 
we  therefore  condense,  and,  for  the  sake  of  greater  brevity, 
translate  into  theistic  language.  It  amounts  simply  to 
saying  that  if  man  were  free,  he  could  interfere  with  the 
beneficent  purposes  of  his  Creator.  This  is,  however,  a  fal- 
lacy, since  it  assumes  that  freedom  is  unlimited  freedom, 
and  the  power  (,£  the  will  is  unlimited  power.  On  any 
hypothesis,  human  freedom  and  human  power  are  completely 
subjected  to  the  general  plan  and  order  of  the  universe  ;  they 
affect  greatly  the  individual  man's  happiness  or  misery ;  but 
single  volitions  of  man  do  not  control  the  destinies  of  the 
race.  Our  liberty  is  small ;  but  it  is  real.  We  insist  on  it, 
because  we  see  it,  and  cannot  submit  to  hearing  its  existence 
denied.  Consciousness  affirms  the  freedom  of  the  will ;  the 
moral  judgments  of  conscience  imply  it ;  and  we  can  neither 


54  THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY  SUKE.  [April, 

persuade  ourselves  nor  be  persuaded,  even  by  Leibnitz  and 
Jonathan  Edwards,  much  less  by  such  fallacies  as  those  of 
Herbert  Spencer,  that  this  affirmation  of  consciousness  and 
of  conscience  is  an  illusion  and  a  falsehood. 

The  vast  majority  of  the  anti-theistic  speculators  of  our 
day  admit  that  the  movement  of  the  universe  is  evolving  the 
most  beneficial  results  for  man,  that  all  things  are  adapted 
to  our  use  and  our  education.  The  theist  derives  from  this 
conceded  fact  the  inference  that  the  Creator  intended  all 
things  for  the  good  of  man.  The  heart  asks  for  more  than 
this  ;  it  longs  for  assurance  that  the  order  of  events  is  de- 
signed for  the  highest  benefit  of  each  individual,  as  well  as 
of  the  race.  The  Jewish  and  the  Christian  scriptures  sanc- 
tion this  longing  of  the  heart,  and  teach  that  God  deals  with 
men  as  a  father  with  his  children,  approving  or  disapproving 
their  conduct,  and  loving  them  according  to  their  individual 
fidelity  to  their  highest  convictions  of  duty. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  are  told  by  some  that  this  hope  of 
the  favor  and  love  of  God  is  a  remnant  of  childish  super- 
stition ;  that,  as  God  is  without  body  or  parts,  so  is  he 
without  passions  or  emotions ;  that  his  beneficence  is  in  all 
respects  impartial,  acting  only  through  the  inflexible  laws 
of  nature.  In  other  words,  they  contend  that  the  infinitude 
of  the  Deity  excludes  the  possibility  of  his  passing  moral 
judgment  on  men,  hearing  their  prayers,  or  forgiving  their 
sins.  But  their  argument  is  fallacious ;  we  might  as  well 
contend  that  the  infinitude  of  the  Deity  prevents  our  ascribing 
to  him  the  creation  of  the  finite  universe,  with  its  separate 
nebulae,  separate  stars,  diverse  planets,  different  elements, 
and  so  on  ;  these  facts  being  just  as  irreconcilable  with  an 
infinite  First  Cause  as  the  doctrines  of  prayer  and  forgiveness 
or  the  hopes  and  aspirations  of  piety  can  be.  But  we  must 
not  argue  from  the  infinite  in  any  case. 

All  men  of  deepest  religious  feeling,  in  cultivated  nations, 
long  for  an  infinite  love  whereon  to  lean,  comfort  themselves 
with  the  hope  of  forgiveness,  and  delight  themselves  in  the  hope 
of  God's  approval.     So  tender  do  the  relations  between  God 


1874]     THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.         55 

and  his  children  seem,  that  both  Jewish  prophets  and  Christian 
apostles  compare  it  not  only  to  the  parental,  but  even  to  the 
marriage,  bond.  It  must,  however,  be  acknowledged  that 
many  of  the  exceedingly  complex  emotions  of  friendship  and 
love  which  bind  us  together  upon  earth  will  be  wanting  in 
the  society  of  heaven,  and  that  many  of  the  emotions  which 
can  well  be  supposed  to  swell  the  hearts  of  the  saints  above 
must  be  absent  in  the  love  with  which  God  looks  upon  his 
children.  The  holiest  and  sweetest  part  of  human  love, 
whether  here  or  in  the  world  to  come,  is  the  recognition  of 
the  divine  image  in  the  beloved,  the  perception  of  our  friend's 
superiority  in  some  point  of  spiritual  character  to  us.  This 
is  the  reason  why  the  tenderest  love  takes  the  form  of  adora- 
tion. In  this  form  —  the  recognition  of  superiority  —  it,  of 
course,  ceases  with  finite  spirits.  But  there  is  no  reason  to 
limit  the  recognition  of  worth,  of  character,  to  finite  spirits, 
or  to  deny  that  God  approves  the  victor  over  temptation,  and 
loves  one  who  strives  after  virtue.  God  acts,  indeed,  through 
universal  law.  But  what  is  a  law?  It  is  an  intellectual  idea, 
embodied  or  expressed  in  a  multitude  of  particulars.  The 
mind  which  originated  the  idea  and  embodied  it  in  the  whole, 
embodied  it  in  each  particular  instance.  The  intellect  which 
planned  the  world  planned  its  minutest  details.  We  stand 
before  him  as  individuals,  and  he  knows  each  individual's 
wants.  He  gave  us  freedom,  so  carefully  guarded  that  we 
cannot  frustrate  his  designs,  yet  so  real  that  we  rejoice  before 
him  in  the  liberty  of  his  children  ;  and  he  loves  and  approves 
us  according  to  our  use  of  his  unspeakable  gift. 

Every  cause,  even  the  Ultimate  Cause,  stands  related  to 
all  its  effects.  Impossible  as  it  is  for  us  to  reconcile  the 
predicates  assumed  with  those  declared,  in  that  proposition, 
we  are  compelled  to  admit  both  by  a  sterner  logical  necessity 
than  that  which  would  attempt  to  drive  us  to  the  reconcili- 
ation. The  cause  stands  related  to  its  effects.  Utterly 
inscrutable  as  the  Power  which  formed  the  Universe  may 
be,  it  still  remains  certain  that  the  Cause  which  produced 
the  goodly  whole  was  able  to  exert  mechanical  force,  and  tc 

Vol.  XXXI.  No.  122.  30 


56  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY  SURE.  [April, 

guide  matter  according  to  a  priori  laws  of  space  and  time. 
Utterly  unknown  and  unknowable  as  that  First  Cause  may  be, 
it  still  remains  certain  that  it  could  produce,  on  this  earth, 
at  least,  intellects  which  recognize  these  geometric  and  alge- 
braic laws,  and  find  delight  in  tracing  the  paths  in  which 
worlds  and  atoms  are  moving  to  obey  them.  Impossible  as 
it  may  be  to  assign  any  attributes  whatever  to  the  First 
Cause,  we  know  that  it  made  these  intelligent  observers 
capable  of  a  myriad  of  other  forms  of  happiness.  We  may 
not  assign  to  it  any  attributes ;  but  we  know  that  it  also 
inspired  these  happy  intelligences  with  longings  after  virtue 
and  excellence,  and  with  longings  for  communing  with 
eternal  and  infinite  wisdom  and  goodness.  In  other  words, 
'however  inscrutable  the  First  Cause  of  all,  it  was  able  to  call 
the  world  into  being,  and  guide  it  by  wise  laws ;  to  create 
man,  and  inspire  him  with  an  expanding  mind,  with  lofty 
virtue,  with  longings  and  hopes  that  lay  hold  of  eternity, 
with  loves  that  fill  him  with  unutterable  bliss,  with  a  love 
that  takes  in  indefinitely  wider  and  wider  circles  of  acquaint- 
ances and  friends,  and  grows  also  indefinitely  stronger  and 
stronger  in  its  attachments. 

The  reasonable  induction  from  these  facts  is,  that  the  First 
/Cause  is  the  All-wise,  Almighty,  All-holy,  All-loving  God, 
whose  condemnation  of  sin,  whose  approval  of  goodness, 
whose  tender  yearnings  of  love  towards  each  individual  one 
of  his  countless  children,  are  but  faintly  echoed  in  our  moral 
judgment,  faintly  imaged  in  the  holiest  affections  of  our  most 
tender  relations  to  each  other. 


58  THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY.  [July, 


ARTICLE    III. 
THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY. 

BT  THOMAS  HILL,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  FORMERLY  PRESIDENT  OF  HARVARD  COLLEGE. 

The  realm  of  truth  extends  indefinitely,  probably  infinitely, 
in  all  directions.  We  see  in  part,  and  we  are  not  able  to 
state,  in  verbal  propositions,  even  the  whole  of  that  which  we 
see.  At  a  scientific  meeting  in  Baltimore,  Peirce  demon- 
strated that  it  would  take  an  able  mathematician  two  hundred 
thousand  million  years  to  make  a  preliminary  examination 
of  a  series  of  plane  curves  which  he  had  pointed  out.  These 
were  curves  of  the  simplest  laws  ;  add  the  more  complicated  ; 
take  also  those  revealed  by  different  methods  of  investigation ; 
add  those  which  are  not  confined  to  one  plane  ;  pass  then  to 
the  laws  of  surfaces  and  solids,  and  it  is  evident  that  in 
geometry,  the  simplest  of  possible  sciences,  there  is  an  op- 
portunity for  eternal  occupation  and  delight  to  an  intelligent 
spirit.  The  other  departments  of  mathematics,  algebra  and 
arithmetic,  are  equally  boundless  in  resources.  The  physical 
sciences,  the  historical  group,  the  domains  of  psychology  and 
metaphysics,  and  our  gropings  after  ontology  and  theology, 
remain  yet  to  shew  us  what  infinite  resources  there  are  for 
intellectual  occupation  in  the  coming  cycles  of  eternity.  And 
all  this  truth  which  to  eternity  may  be  giving  by  its  discovery 
fresh  pleasures  to  the  expanding  mind,  has  been  from  eternity 
known  to  God.  His  knowledge  embraces  not  only  all  the 
;  real,  past  and  future,  but  all  the  possible,  and  all  the  impos- 
sible. To  see  the  truth  is  to  see  as  he  sees  it,  —  truth  is 
conformity  to  his  thought. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  men  cannot  see  truth,  their 
"views  must  inevitably  be  not  only  limited,  but  obscure,  and 
therefore  doubly  erroneous.  But  this  is  a  rhetorical  over- 
statement, which,  strictly  interpreted,  would  deny  its   own 


1874.]  THE  NATURAL   FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY.  50 

truth ;  no  human  statement  can  be  made  which  docs  not 
imply  the  speakers  belief  in  its  truth,  and  consequent  belief 
that  he  sees  truth.  As  far  as  man  sees  at  all,  he  sees  truth  ; 
and  the  addition  of  infinite  knowledge  would  not  destroy  the 
truth  already  seen.  God's  thoughts  embrace  ours,  but  ours 
do  not  embrace  his.  Whatever  the  human  intellect  discovers 
in  the  relations  of  space  and  time,  in  the  harmonics  of  the 
physical  creation,  or  in  the  laws  of  its  own  thought,  was 
known  from  eternity  to  the  Creator  ;  and  it  is  a  simple  con- 
fusion of  thought  to  object  that  this  statement  is  anthropo- 
morphize. Man  is  made  in  the  image  of  God,  —  that  is  not 
saying  that  God  is  in  the  image  of  man. 

In  this  infinite  realm  of  truth  there  are  ideas  which  affect 
us  profoundly,  without  being  consciously  understood.  Even 
the  simple  truths  of  geometry  may  thus  address  us.  An 
artist  may  draw  a  beautiful  form,  an  ellipse  or  spiral  for 
example,  from  his  sense  of  beauty,  without  any  intellectual 
conception  of  the  law  of  that  form.  All  truth  affects  the 
feelings  to  some  extent,  but  the  feeling  is  not  directly  pro- 
portioned to  the  clearness  of  the  perception.  The  intellectual 
perception  of  a  form,  embodying  a  law,  and  the  pleasure 
arising  from  its  beauty,  are  not  only  distinct  states  of  con- 
sciousness, but,  as  such,  are  to  some  degree  mutually  exclusive. 
Beauty,  as  an  objective  reality,  is  the  embodiment  of  a  single 
idea  in  a  varied  or  complex  form ;  the  beauty  of  a  material 
object  is  directly  proportioned  to  the  simplicity  of  the  law  of 
its  being,  and  to  the  complexity  or  variety  of  the  manifesta- 
tion ;  but  our  perception  of  the  beauty  does  not  depend  on 
our  perception  of  the  law ;  a  person  without  any  musical 
learning,  for  example,  may  enjoy  a  symphony. 

But  other  emotions,  than  those  of  a  simple  pleasure,  may 
thus  be  awakened  by  objects  that  suggest  no  decidedly  intel- 
lectual thought.  All  the  nicest  shades  of  human  feeling  are 
expressed  by  music  with  more  precision  and  force  than  can 
be  given  to  their  utterance  in  words.  Thus  also  the  human 
face  may  express  all  the  varying  passions  of  the  heart. 

In  these  instances  the  expression  of  a  thought  is  not  rec- 


60  THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS   OF   THEOLOGY.  [July, 

ognized  by  the  intellect,  but  is  felt  by  the  heart,  as  pleasure 
or  other  emotion.  There  are  yet  other  expressions  of  thought, 
objects,  and  relations  in  the  world  which  do  more  than  excite 
emotion  ;  they  awaken  desire  or  stimulate  volition. 

From  among  these  truths  acting  directly  on  the  will  with 
but  a  partial  excitation  of  the  intellect,  let  us  select  for  con- 
sideration those  which  produce  the  conviction  of  duty  —  the 
sense  of  moral  obligation.     These  moral  emotions  bear  witness 
to  the  existence  of  other  truths  than  those  of  space  and  time, 
matter  and  motion.     Two  series  of  facts  of   consciousness 
bear  constant  testimony  against  any  sensational  philosophy : 
first,  the  continual  grasping  of  the  mind  after  the  Infinite ; 
secondly,  the  constant  recognition  of  a  distinction  between 
right  and  wrong,  and  the  moral  approval  or  disapproval  con- 
sequent upon  that  recognition.     The  sensational  school  would 
resolve  the  judgment  of  right  into   a   judgment  of   utility. 
The  most  ingenious  explanation  of  this  kind  makes  the  moral 
judgment  merely  a  judgment  of  utility  not  consciously  formed, 
but  unconsciously  inherited  from  an  infinitely  long  line  of 
ancestry,  reaching  to  the  ascidians.     Our  moral  indignation  at 
this    confounding  of   utility  with  right,  we  are    told,  is  an 
illusion  ;  by  things  useful,  it  is  said,  we  mean  those  the  utility 
of  which  we  perceive;   by  things  that  are  right,  we  mean 
those  whose  utility  has  been  perceived  by  a  majority  of  our 
ancestors.     This  jugglery  of  words  explains  nothing.     Men 
perceive,  and  cannot  wholly  close  their  eyes  against  perceiving, 
a  difference  between  duty  and  interest,  between  usefulness 
and  goodness,  and  the  attempted  explanations  of  the  sensa- 
tional school  are,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  a  denial  of 
the  veracity  of  human  consciousness. 

But  as  the  perception  of  color  is  the  implicit  perception  vjf 
a  rhythm  in  the  undulations  of  light ;  and  the  perception  of 
harmony  is  the  implicit  perception  of  law  in  tremors  of  the 
air  ;  this  rhythm  and  law  not  being  recognized  by  the  intellect, 
but  being  felt  as  beauty ;  so  the  perception  of  the  right  is  an 
implicit  perception  of  spiritual  order,  not  recognized  as  law, 
but  felt  as  duty.     And  as  the  physicist  might  or  might  not, 


1874.]        THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY.  61 

in  the  seventeenth  century,  have  understood  harmony  and 
coloring,  while  still  the  unlearned  truly  saw  and  heard  their 
beauty ;  so  the  metaphysician  of  the  nineteenth  century  may 
or  may  not  analyse  the  spiritual  order  of  the  universe,  while 
still  the  unlearned  truly  see  and  feel  the  reality  and  sanctity 
of  moral  obligation.  Our  judgments  of  right  and  wrong 
depend  much  upon  our  temperaments  and  upon  our  education ; 
our  moral  perceptions  vary  in  clearness  and  precision,  and 
need  training ;  but  this  no  more  militates  against  the  reality 
of  the  objects  of  that  perception,  than  the  need  of  training  in 
mathematical  and  physical  science  shows  the  non-existence 
of  space  and  time,  matter  and  motion. 

The  most  general  statement  of  the  moral  order  is,  perhaps, 
that  given  by  Jouffroy,  that  our  duty  is  to  fulfil  our  destined 
end  :  the  purpose  of  the  Creator  is  law  to  the  creature.  The 
laws  of  life  are  the  conditions  on  which  life  is  given ;  every 
violation  of  them  cripples  life  ;  their  flagrant  violation  destroys 
life.  The  implicit  perception  of  this  law  in  regard  to  the 
will  gives  the  conscious  sense  of  duty ;  the  sense  of  obligation 
to  obey  the  Creator.  Yet  this  recognition  of  a  destined  end 
is  not  a  full  solution  of  the  question  of  right.  The  forms  of 
organic  life  are  not  beautiful  because  God  chose  them,  but  he 
chose  those  which  were  in  themselves  beautiful ;  in  like 
manner  the  spiritual  order  is  not  right  simply  because  he 
chose  it,  but  he  chose  it  because  it  was  right.  He  saw  from 
eternity  the  beauty  of  moral  order,  and  its  absolute  necessity 
for  his  creatures  ;  therefore  he  endowed  us  with  this  capacity 
for  being  impressed  with  the  sense  of  obligation,  when  we 
catch,  as  it  were,  obscured  glimpses  of  this  eternal  beauty. 

Certain  writers  have  separated  our  moral  from  our  intel- 
lectual faculties,  calling  one  the  pure  reason,  the  other 
practical  understanding,  or  regulative  principles  ;  but,  in  my 
judgment,  the  difference  between  ethics  and  mathematics 
lies  rather  in  the  objects  which  they  discuss,  than  in  the 
powers  of  the  mind  by  which  they  are  handled.  In  each 
science  we  build  both  upon  intuitions  and  perceptions,  and 
the  main  difference  is  in  the  sharpness  of  definition  attainable 


62  THE  NATURAL   FOUNDATIONS   OF   THEOLOGY.  [July, 

in  the  two  departments.  In  certainty  of  sight  and  of  deduc- 
tion the  two  are  equal ;  in  value  ethics  take  precedence ;  in 
sharpness  of  detail,  the  mathematics. 

We  cannot,  while  retaining  consciousness,  avoid  considering 
conscious  life  higher  than  unconscious  ;  neither,  so  long 
as  we  see  moral  distinctions,  can  we  avoid  considering  ques- 
tions of  duty  paramount  to  all  other  questions.  Conscious 
obedience  to  the  Infinite  Creator  is  the  highest  conceivable 
life ;  conscious  refusal  to  yield  to  his  will  is  the  supremest 
folly.  The  moral  judgment  is  an  implicit  perception  that  his 
will  rules  in  the  spiritual  world  ;  it  is  an  implicit  testimony 
to  his  existence.  Thus  conscience  itself  is  an  ambassador 
for  Christ,  beseeching  us  to  be  reconciled  to  God.,  as  the  only 
possible  avenue  to  life,  or  escape  from"  destruction.  The 
New  Testament,  with  its  doctrine  of  atonement,  of  the  recon- 
ciliation of  man  to  God,  does  no  violence  to  the  highest  moral 
sense,  nor  does  it  conflict  with  the  highest  idea  of  an  un- 
changeable Creator,  whose  will  and  purpose  is  our  only 
measure  and  rule  of  right  ;  just  as  his  workmanship  is  our 
highest  type  and  measure  of  beauty.  The  poets  of  all  ages 
and  all  nations  bewail  man's  fallen  and  abject  condition  ;  the 
sublime  apologue  of  the  book  of  Genesis  alone  gives  us  a  just 
explanation  of  that  fall ;  an  explanation  which  will  bear  the 
most  searching  criticism  of  reason  and  the  moral  sense. 
That  explanation  (as  I  understand  it,  and  as  it  seems  to  me 
any  man  who  reflects  upon  the  extreme  antiquity  of  the 
document  would  understand  it)  consists  in  the  statement 
that  man  is  placed  in  the  garden  of  this  world,  endowed  with 
a  limited  freedom  by  which  he  may,  if  he  chooses,  become  a 
co-worker  with  God  and  a  partaker  in  divine  joys  ;  and  may, 
if  he  chooses,  refuse  thus  to  serve  God,  and  seek  only  to 
gratify  his  own  wishes.  He  chooses  the  latter,  he  thus  goes 
wholly  out  of  the  way  of  life,  and  his  only  possible  salvation 
is  a  complete  change  of  direction,  turning  his  face  again 
toward  Jerusalem,  and  renouncing  his  perilous  descent  to 
Jericho.  So  soon  as  this  revelation  of  the  fall  of  man  from 
allegiance  to  God  to  the  service  of  himself  is  announced  to 


1874.]        THE  NATURAL   FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY.  63 

ns,  our  conscience  bears  testimony  to  it,  and  the  exceeding 
guilt  of  sin  is  seen  to  consist  in  this  virtual  enmity  against 
God.  The  conscience  thus  awakened  becomes  so  much  im- 
pressed with  the  guiltiness  of  sin,  that  it  sometimes  endorses 
the  doctrine  of  the  personal  immortality  of  the  soul,  as  the 
only  means  of  vindicating  the  eternal  justice  of  providence, 
which  does  not  appear  to  award  to  men  in  this  life  the  full 
measure  of  their  deserts. 

The  sense  of  the  certainty  of  retribution  for  sin  sometimes 
leads  to  the  doctrine  that  the  effect  of  sin  is  inevitable,  and 
that  forgiveness  is  impossible.  The  difficulty  of  free  and  full 
forgiveness,  from  God  or  from  man,  is  keenly  felt,  even  when 
forgiveness  is  not  pronounced  impossible.  Yet,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  is  a  native  admiration  of  mercy ;  so  that  mercy 
has  been  always  accounted  even  more  divine  than  justice. 
The  Christian  religion  is  not  therefore,  unreasonable  or 
incredible  in  its  offers  of  forgiveness  ;  in ,  its  assurance  that 
the  sacrifice  on  Calvary  may  take  away  our  sins.  The  invio- 
lability of  law  does  not  imply  the  inevitability  of  punishment. 
It  is  certainly  established,  in  medicine,  that  some  poisons 
have  efficacious  antidotes,  and  that  for  certain  diseases  there 
are  unfailing  remedies.  The  inviolability  of  law,  therefore, 
does  not  prevent  medical  skill  from  sometimes  defending 
health  against  every  permanent  effect  of  poison  or  disease. 
The  physical  consequence  of  sin,  in  other  words,  may  some- 
times be  avoided,  despite  the  inviolability  of  physical  law ; 
sometimes  not  even  a  scar  remains  from  a  wound  ;  nor  a  trace 
of  weakness  from  the  bed  of  sickness ;  why  is  it  then  impos- 
sible that  the  great  physician  can  heal  a  soul  from  the  leprosy 
of  sin  without  leaving  a  scar  or  any  sign  of  weakness  ? 

In  these  articles  upon  the  certainty  of  religious  knowledge 
we  have  thus  far  been  considering,  principally,  the  intuitions 
of  spiritual  and  moral  truth.  Let  us  turn  to  a  more  particular 
examination  of  the  outward  world,  the  testimony  of  the 
material,  the  visible,  to  the  invisible  and  eternal.  The  argu- 
ments of  theology  founded  on  external  nature  have  been 
usually  divided  into  the  two  great  classes,  the  teleological 

Vol.  XXXI.  No.  123.  56 


64  THE  NATURAL   FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY.  [July. 

and  the  morphological.  The  teleological  argues  from  the 
adaptation  of  means  to  ends ;  the  morphological  from  the 
conformity  of  parts  to  a  general  plan.  This  latter  is  thus 
the  more  general,  embracing  wider  ranges  of  phenomena  ;  it 
would  discover  instances  in  the  outward  world  of  conformity 
to  a  priori  conceptions  of  order  in  space  or  time,  and  claim 
them  as  proof  that  this  conformity  is  the  expression  of  an 
intellectual  conception  of  that  order. 

The  modes  of  embodying  or  illustrating  an  idea  may  be 
very  various.  Take,  for  a  simple  example,  the  idea  of  division 
in  extreme  and  mean  ratio,  that  is  to  say,  of  division  into 
two  parts,  such  that  the  less  shall  have  the  same  relation  to 
the  greater,  that  the  greater  does  to  the  whole.  We  may 
approximate  this  division  by  dividing  unity  into  the  two 
fractions,  .61803784  and  .38196216,  or  express  it  exactly  by 
saying  the  lesser  fraction  is  half  the  difference  between  three 
and  the  square  root  of  five.  Or  we  may  divide,  by  various 
geometrical  devices,  a  straight  line,  or  a  curved  line,  or  a  sur- 
face, or  a  solid,  or  an  angle,  in  the  proposed  proportion.  Or 
we  may  take  a  unit  of  time,  or  of  velocity,  and  let  the  velocity 
be  in  a  right  line,  or  in  a  circle,  and  devise  mechanical  means 
of  the  division.  Or  we  may  take  a  unit,  not  strictly  susceptible 
of  quantitative  measurement,  and  enlarge  thus  our  idea  from 
mere  ratio  to  general  relation,  and  thus  embody  a  division 
in  extreme  and  mean  ratio  in  a  poem,  a  sonata,  a  novel,  a 
drama ;  or  in  a  political  organization,  in  church  or  state. 

Now  any  one  of  these  modes  of  embodying  that  idea  is 
also  a  mode  of  uttering,  explaining,  and  illustrating  the  idea. 
The  simplest  mode  is  the  geometrical,  and  the  simplest  pos- 
sible would  be  the  simplest  among  the  subdivisions  of  the 
geometrical.  The  power  of  perceiving  space  is  the  lowest 
among  the  intellectual  powers,  and  its  culture  serves  as  the 
foundation  for  all  the  superstructure  of  learning.  Space  is 
in  itself  infinite  and  without  parts,  and,  therefore,  would  be 
wholly  incapable  of  apprehension  by  the  finite  mind,  but  for 
our  connection  with  matter  and  motion  through  the  body. 
This  embodiment  of  mechanical  force  in  the  physical  frame, 


1874.]        THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY.  65 

force  that  can  be  manifested  only  in  motion  occupying  both 
space  and  time ;  and  the  dependence  even  of  conscious 
thought  upon  motion  in  the  brain,  thus  weaving  time  into 
the  very  life  of  the  soul ;  gives  us  the  ability  to  recognize  the 
presence  of  space  and  time,  and  to  impose  arbitrary  divisions 
upon  them.  The  first  act  of  spontaneous  muscular  motion 
calls  our  attention  to  the  existence  of  space,  and  the  first 
intellectual  exercise  is  the  analysis  of  the  perceptions  thus 
gained.  During  the  earliest  years  of  childhood  the  recog- 
nition of  things  by  their  shapes  occupies  by  far  the  largest 
share  of  a  child's  mental  activity.  From  the  analysis  of  space 
come  the  first  lessons  in  precision  and  accuracy.  Nor  can 
the  adult  find  any  precision  of  thought  to  compare  with  the 
conception  of  a  geometric  locus.  The  point,  the  line,  the 
surface,  are  absolute  zeros  in  space  ;  and  the  law  of  a  locus, 
confining  a  point  to  a  given  line  or  given  surface,  allows  of 
absolutely  no  variation,  no  play ;  it  demands  an  obedience  to 
which  even  the  fidelity  of  the  physical  elements  to  law  might 
be  considered  riotous  license.  Hence  the  shortest  fragment 
of  a  curve  contains  the  whole  law  ;  could  the  geometer  know 
the  exact  path  of  a  comet  for  the  thousandth  of  a  second,  he 
could,  from  that,  predict  accurately  its  whole  course  and 
orbit  in  its  journey  of  centuries  through  the  remotest  bounds 
of  our  system. 

Yet  this  same  science  of  geometry,  which  gives  us  our  first 
lessons  of  precise  accuracy,  gives  us  also  out  first  definite 
measure  of  the  value  of  approximation.  No  material  objects 
can  perfectly  fulfil  a  geometric  law ;  yet  an  approximate 
fulfilment,  by  a  model  of  stretched  threads,  or  carved  wood, 
or  by  lines  drawn  with  pencil  or  with  crayon,  is  an  announce- 
ment of  the  law,  which  is  to  most  persons  clearer,  more 
intelligible,  than  any  announcement  in  written  symbols. 
The  points  of  space  which  exactly  fulfil  the  law  have  no 
physical  powers  ;  they  cannot  attract  particles  to  themselves ; 
they  are  distinguishable  from  contiguous  points  only  by  a 
mental  act  of  an  intelligence  that  knows  the  law  of  the  locus. 
When,  therefore,  we  see  the  streak  of  chalk  upon  the  black- 


66  THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY.  [July 

board,  making  even  a  rude  approximation  to  a  symmetrical 
form,  we  irresistibly  infer  that  the  chalk  was  guided  by  an 
intelligent  hand,  designedly  embodying  the  law,  held  in  the 
draughtsman's  mind,  either  in  an  artistic,  or  in  a  scientific 
form. 

This  reasoning  is  as  strictly  just  applied  to  natural  as  to 
artificial  forms.  There  is  no  more  power  in  points  of  space 
to  attract  atoms  or  molecules  than  to  attract  masses.  The 
crystalline  forms  of  minerals  indicate  the  action  of  conscious 
intelligence  precisely  as  the  models  of  crystals  in  the  cabinet 
do.  That  higher  intelligence  which  guides  the  action  of 
natural  forces  must,  of  course,  view  the  laws  of  geometric 
loci  in  a  very  different  manner  from  that  of  our  feeble  and 
slowly  developed  comprehension.  But  that  higher  intelligence 
has  a  perfect  knowledge  of  such  laws,  not  no  knowledge; 
and  the  demonstration  of  this  truth  is  found  in  the  close 
conformity  of  crystals,  and  the  more  wonderful  conformity 
of  organic  forms  to  geometric  laws  of  symmetry. 

It  is  from  these  diagrams  of  nature  that  men  get  their 
first  suggestions  of  geometric  beauty  and  law,  and  are  stim- 
ulated to  the  invention  of  new  laws.  Nor  can  we  fail  to 
notice  how  frequently  the  law  which  men  have  invented, 
proves  to  have  been  already  known  and  used  in  nature.  The 
mathematician  devises  a  geometric  locus,  or  an  algebraic 
formula  from  a  priori  considerations,  and  afterward  discovers 
that  he  has  been  unwittingly  solving  a  mechanical  problem, 
or  explaining  the  form  of  a  real  phenomenon.  Thus,  for 
example,  in  Peirce's  Integral  Calculus,  published  in  1843,  is 
a  problem  invented  and  solved  ptfrely  in  the  enthusiasm  of 
following  the  analytic  symbols  ;  but  in  1863  it  proved  to  be 
a  complete  prophetic  discussion  and  solution  of  the  problem 
of  two  pendulums  suspended  from  one  horizontal  cord.  Thus 
also  Galileo's  discussion  of  the  cycloid  proved,  long  afterward, 
to  be  a  key  to  problems  concerning  the  pendulum,  falling 
bodies,  and  resistance  to  transverse  pressure.  Four  centuries 
before  Christ,  Plato  and  his  scholars  were  occupied  upon  the 
ellipse  as  a  purely  geometric  speculation,  and  Socrates  seemed 


1874.]         THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY.  67 

inclined  to  reprove  them  for  their  waste  of  time.  But  in  the 
seventeenth  century  after  Christ,  Kepler  discovers  that  the 
Architect  of  the  heavens  had  given  us  magnificent  diagrams 
of  the  ellipse  in  the  starry  heavens  ;  and,  since  that  time,  all 
the  navigation  and  architecture  and  engineering  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  have  been  built  upon  these  speculations  of 
Plato.  Equally  remarkable  is  the  history  of  the  idea  of 
extreme  and  mean  ratio.  Before  the  Christian  era,  geometers 
had  invented  a  process  for  dividing  a  line  in  this  ratio,  that 
they  might  use  it  in  an  equally  abstract  and  useless  problem-  - 
the  inscribing  a  regular  pentagon  in  a  circle.  But  it  was  not 
until  the  middle  of  the  present  century  that  it  was  discovered 
that  this  idea  is  embodied  in  nature.  It  is  hinted  at  in  some 
animal  forms,  it  is  very  thoroughly  and  accurately  expressed 
in  the  angles  at  which  the  leaves  of  plants  diverge  as  they 
grow  from  the  stem ;  and  it  is  embodied  approximately  in 
the  revolutions  of  the  planets  about  the  sun.  These  three 
embodiments,  moreover,  have  no  apparent  genetic  or  causal 
connection.  Plants  can  scarcely,  on  the  theory  of  progres- 
sive evolution,  have  come  from  a  common  ancestry  with 
animals ;  nor  can  the  revolutions  of  the  planets  be  imagined 
as  controlling  the  angles  of  the  leaves  of  plants.  Let  us 
further  observe  that  the  nature  of  the  unit  is  different  in  the 
two  cases  ;  in  the  plants,  stationary  angular  distance  around 
the  stem ;  in  the  planets,  angular  velocity  of  motion.  Nor 
have  we,  even  in  the  case  of  plants,  any  clew  to  the  proximate 
cause  of  the  arrangement,  beyond  a  vague  analogy  to  a 
supposed  law  of  the  genesis  of  cells. 

Now  in  all  these  cases  of  the  embodiment  in  nature  of  an 
idea  which  men  have  developed,  not  by  a  study  of  the  em- 
bodiment, but  by  an  a  priori  speculation,  there  seems  to  us 
demonstrative  evidence  that  man  is  made  in  the  image  of  his 
Creator ;  that  the  thoughts  and  knowledge  of  God  contain 
and  embrace  all  possible  a  priori  speculations  of  men.  It  is 
true  that  God's  knowledge  is  infinite  and  beyond  our  utmost 
power  of  conception.  But  how  can  we  compare  the  reason- 
ings of   Euclid   upon   extreme   and    mean   ratio,   with   the 


68  THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY.  [July 

arrangement  of  leaves  about  the  stem,  and  the  revolutions  of 
planets  around  the  sun,  and  not  feel  that  these  phenomena 
of  creation  express  Euclid's  idea  as  exactly  as  diagrams  or 
Arabic  digits  could  do  ;  and  that  this  idea  was,  in  some 
form,  present  in  the  creation  ? 

Yet  this  is  only  a  single  one  of  very  numerous  examples. 
In  Agassiz's  Introduction  to  the  Natural  History  of  the 
United  States,  he  brings,  from  the  animal  kingdom  alone,  a 
vast,  almost  innumerable,  multitude  of  facts  arranged  to  show 
the  presence  of  ideas  in  the  phenomena  of  animal  life ;  and 
the  result  is  a  cumulative  argument,  irresistible  to  a  mind 
capable  of  appreciating  logical  proof ;  demonstrating  that 
the  intellectual  distinctions  upon  which  the  classification  of 
animals  proceeds,  in  species,  genera,  families,  orders,  classes, 
and  departments,  are  not  subjective  distinctions  in  the  nat- 
uralist's thought,  but  objective  distinctions  in  the  animals, 
proceeding  from  intellectual  distinctions  in  the  creative  mind. 

We  are  aware  that  this  Introduction  to  the  Essay  on  Classi- 
fication has  been  severely  criticised,  on  the  ground  that  the 
only  business  of  science  is  to  formulate  facts  into  the  briefest 
and  most  comprehensive  expressions.  We  deny  altogether 
this  definition  of  science,  her  work  is  incomparably  higher ; 
the  prevalence  of  this  error  would  presently  crush  out  all 
physical  science ;  just  as  the  prevalence  of  a  kindred  error 
crushed  out  geometry  among  the  Romans.  Science  is  sys- 
tematized knowledge  ;  and  the  knowledge  of  principles,  laws, 
and  ideas,  is  incomparably  better  than  the  mere  knowledge 
of  the  facts  which  embody  them.  An  empirical  formula  may 
generalize  the  facts  in  the  briefest  manner,  and  yet  it  is 
unsatisfactory  to  a  scientific  mind.  The  object  of  science  is 
to  unfold  the  intellectual  order  and  harmony  of  creation  ;  anu 
while  it  can  be  attained  without  distinct  recognition  of  the 
Creative  Wisdom,  it  cannot  be  attained  by  those  who  deny 
the  presence  of  Creative  Wisdom.  Linnaeus  and  Cuvier 
made  their  grand  discoveries  only  by  aid  of  the  assumption 
that  everything  in  organic  nature  is  perfectly  adapted  as  a 
means  to  an  end ;  and  Agassiz's  more  powerful  and  subtile 


1874.]        THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY.  69 

instrument,  by  which  he  has  made  advances  that  carry  him 
beyond  the  power  of  many  of  his  fellow  zoologists  even  to 
appreciate,  has  been  the  more  general  axiom  that  all  the 
forms  of  organic  nature  are  intellectually  related  as  parts  of 
one  intelligible  plan. 

Inorganic  nature  is  also  built  on  an  intellectual  scheme. 
The  law  of  gravity  by  which  its  force  varies  as  the  square  of 
the  distance,  is  shown  by  the  mathematician  to  produce  better 
results  than  any  other  law — it  is  the  simplest  conceivable  law 
of  emanation ;  but  we  see  no  other  causes  for  its  selection, 
except  these  intellectual  reasons.  The  symmetry  of  crystals 
and  of  the  undulations  of  the  ether  are  produced  not  only  by 
attraction  and  elastic  repulsion,  but  probably  also  by  original 
symmetry  in  the  atoms  of  matter.  The  phenomena  of  light 
demonstrate,  at  least,  that  the  crystalline  form  is  sometimes 
present  in  a  clear  solution  of  the  solid  in  a  liquid.  The 
secret  of  the  form  is,  therefore,  in  the  molecule,  and  probably 
in  the  atom,  and  no  explanation  is  probable  except  that  of 
Newton,  who  assigns  the  atoms  to  the  creation  of  God. 

The  "  occasion  for  the  hypothesis  of  a  Deity  "  is  still  more 
urgent  when  we  consider  organic  forms.  A  universal  force, 
acting  under  general  laws,  would  produce  forms  of  stable 
equilibrium,  limited  in  their  variety.  But  the  forms  of 
organic  life,  of  almost  unlimited  variety,  are  not  in  stable 
equilibrium ;  their  structure  is  essentially  one  of  rhythmic 
change ;  nay,  they  may  even  be  considered  as  in  a  state  of 
perpetual  decay  and  repair;  the  universal  forces  of  light, 
heat,  and  actinic  power,  tearing  them  down  as  fast  as  they 
build  them  up.  The  action  of  these  forces  varies  in  each 
kind  of  creature,  and  even  in  each  individual ;  it  is  not  guided 
by  a  general  controlling  force,  but  by  an  individualizing 
guidance  of  special  law,  without  force,  which  is  an  indication, 
or  rather  demonstration,  of  the  presence  of  thought. 

A  special  evidence  of  the  intellectual  clement  in  the  laws 
of  organic  life  is  alluded  to  in  the  expression  just  used,  of 
rhythmic  change.  From  the  egg  or  seed  the  organic  being 
goes  through  a  series  of  successive  changes,  various  as  the 


70  THE  NATUKAL  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY.  [July, 

variety  of  forms,  until  it  reproduces  the  egg  or  seed.  This 
regular  progress  of  metamorphosis  in  the  animal  or  plant,  is 
a«  clearly  intellectual,  as  impossible  to  explain  on  mechanical 
considerations  only,  as  the  rhythm  of  a  musical  melody,  or 
of  the  pulsation  of  a  message  travelling  over  Morse's  lines. 

The  gemmiferous  multiplication  of  a  polyp,  the  bulb-like 
buds  of  the  red  lily,  show  that  there  is  no  necessity  in  the 
nature  of  things  that  propagating  organisms  should  have  a 
difference  of  sex,  and  ordinarily  multiply  by  the  fecundation 
of  ovules  and  ova.  The  existence  of  this  kind  of  multiplica- 
tion, therefore,  in  all  the  species  of  either  one  kingdom  must 
be  accounted  an  intellectual  unity  of  plan,  requiring  the 
hypothesis  of  an  intelligent  cause ;  and  such  a  hypothesis 
becomes  more  than  doubly  necessary  by  the  presence  of  so 
closely  analogous  kinds  of  propagation  in  both  kingdoms. 

The  tcleological  and  morphological  arguments  are  some- 
times closely  blended  ;  we  see  both  the  idea  embodied,  and 
the  purpose  of  its  embodiment.  But  in  other  cases  the 
perception  of  law  or  symmetry  in  a  form  may  force  upon  us 
the  conviction  of  design,  when  no  purpose  of  the  design  may 
be  visible.  The  exquisite  forms  of  flowers,  and  of  the  mark- 
ings upon  insects  are  as  clearly  indicative  of  thought  as  any 
diagrams  can  be.  Those  who  refuse  ass°nt  to  this  morpho- 
logic argument,  must  either  do  so  from  the  feeling  that  it  is 
impious  to  attribute  to  the  Infinite  First  Cause  any  finite 
ideas,  or  from  the  feeling  that  the  natural  form  grows  by  a 
natural  law. 

But  it  appears  to  me  a  misconception  of  the  morphological 
argument  to  suppose  that  it  attributes  human  ideas  to  the 
Deity  ;  it  merely  assumes  that  the  human  or  finite  idea  was 
included  in  the  divine  ideal  of  creation.  It  is  the  manifes- 
tation of  these  ideas  in  nature  which  has  always  been  the 
clearest  guide  and  most  powerful  stimulus  to  the  invention 
of  a  priori  laws,  as  though  one  purpose  of  their  manifestation 
had  been  this  instruction  or  education  of  the  human  intellect. 
In  regard  to  the  other  prejudice,  that  natural  forms  grow  by 
natural  law,  we  must  remember  that  a  law  is  not  a  force ;  it 


1874.J        THE  NATURAL   FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY.  71 

is  merely  an  order  in  which  a  force  acts,  and  that  order 
implies  intelligence  guiding  the  force.  Points  in  space  and 
instants  in  time  have  no  distinction  from  each  other,  except 
in  the  election  of  the  mind  which  sees  them,  and  selects  them 
for  the  purpose  of  expressing  thought.  Space  and  time  have 
no  power  over  matter ;  matter  is  obedient  to  spirit  alone ; 
and  the  arrangement  of  matter  in  order,  whether  symmetry 
of  form  or  rhythm,  is  the  result  of  its  obedience  to  will 
guided  by  thought.  Any  other  supposition  to  account  for 
the  cosmos,  the  universal  order,  seems  to  us  wholly  untenal  tie. 
The  attempt  to  refrain  from  accounting  for  the  phenomena 
is  vain,  the  mind  is  irresistibly  impelled  to  attempt  the  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  ;  and  the  heart  is  thrilled  with  joy  when 
the  intellect  announces,  as  the  solution,  that  the  First  Cause 
is  all  wise  and  all  good,  as  well  as  almighty. 

Let  us  not  forget  that  we  are  passing  here,  in  a  few  pages, 
over  a  branch  of  argument  capable  of  almost  indefinite  ex- 
pansion. We  have  alluded  only  to  form  and  rhythm ;  but 
morphological  arguments  might  be  drawn  from  the  chemical 
relations  of  the  elements  to  each  other,  to  the  organic  world, 
and  to  our  a  priori  conceptions  of  number.  The  relations 
of  plants  and  animals  to  each  other j  and  to  inorganic  matter, 
furnish  numerous  proofs  that  the  world  was  arranged  by  divine 
wisdom ;  —  the  harmony  between  instinct  and  organization  ; 
the  relations  of  instinct  to  reasoning  ;  the  connections  between 
man  and  the  lower  animals  ;  the  interdependence  of  animals 
on  each  other,  and  also  of  many  plants  ;  the  adaptation  of 
the  astronomical  facts  to  those  of  terrestrial  life ;  and  each 
one  of  these  subjects  would  furnish  matter  for  many  pages 
of  exposition,  were  we  disposed  to  expand  the  morphologic 
argument.  Again,  the  higher  field  of  human  life  would 
furnish  many  invincible  proofs  of  the  guidance  of  overruling 
wisdom.  The  relations  of  the  sexes  to  each  other ;  the 
variety  of  endowments  among  men,  and  differences  in  the 
degrees  of  endowment ;  the  contrasts  in  national  character- 
istics ;  the  form  of  the  continents,  and  arrangement  of 
mountains,  rivers,  and  seas ;  the  variety  of  mineral  and  veg- 

Vol.  XXXI.  No.  123.  57 


72  THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY.  [July, 

etable  productions  in  different  lands  ;  these  are  a  few  of  the 
points  in  which  the  arrangements  of  the  world,  of  men,  and 
of  nature,  seem  the  result  of  intellectual  plan  or  guidance ; 
neither  the  effects  of  chance,  nor  of  obedience  simply  to 
general  invariable  laws.  When,  however,  we  assert  that 
universal  and  invariable  laws  are  not  sufficient  to  account  for 
the  forms  of  nature,  we  do  not  mean  to  imply  miracle  —  a 
suspension  of  the  law  of  physical  causation.  All  effects  upon 
the  earth  are  in  some  sense  historical,  and  we  can  never,  in 
the  course  of  scientific  investigation,  put  our  finger  upon  a 
link  in  the  series,  and  say :  This  was  purely  miraculous ;  there 
was  no  secondary  causation  here.  Even  the  change  from  the 
fauna  and  flora  of  one  geological  epoch  to  another  was, 
probably,  accomplished  through  some  action  of  secondary 
causation ;  although  that  action  has  left  no  trace  of  itself, 
and  the  speculations  of  the  present  century  are  as  wild  and 
unsatisfactory  on  the  subject  as  those  of  Lucretius.  The 
only  visible  connection  between  the  epochs  is  the  intellectual 
unity  which  binds  the  forms  of  organic  life  in  the  earlier  to 
those  in  the  later.  That  intellectual  connection  would  not 
become  null,  nor  lose  its  significance,  should  future  scientific 
research  reveal  to  us  in  reality,  what  the  doctrine  of  natural 
selection  idly  claims  to  have  revealed,  the  mode  by  which  this 
connection  was  physically  accomplished.  If  an  effect  is 
intellectual,  composite,  and  harmoniously  proportioned  in  its 
parts,  then  the  First  Cause  was  intelligent,  whatever  the 
intermediate  steps  of  causation. 

The  morphological  argument  may, then,  be  thus  generalized : 
When  anything  whatever  is  found  to  be  so  arranged  as  to 
express  or  embody  an  idea,  the  presumption  is  that  the 
arrangement  was  made  by  an  intelligent  will ;  and  this  pre- 
sumption increases  in  strength  with  the  complication  of  the 
arrangement,  the  complexity  of  the  idea,  and  the  fidelity  of 
the  arrangement  to  the  idea ;  increases  with  such  rapidity 
that  a  very  moderate  degree  of  complexity  and  of  fidelity 
makes  the  presumption  become  a  certainty. 

The  teleological  argument  is  drawn  from  marks  of  a  design 


1874.]        THE  NATURAL   FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY.  73 

beyond  that  of  the  expression  of  the  idea,  a  design  to  effect 
an  end.  The  world  not  only  expresses  the  thoughts  of  the 
creative  intelligence,  but  accomplishes  the  results  that  daily 
come  to  pass,  so  that  there  is  an  adaptation  of  means  to  ends 
everywhere  visible.  Theological  thinkers,  from  at  least  the 
times  of  Socrates,  have  quoted  these  adaptations  as  illustra- 
tions of  the  divine  wisdom.  But  the  argument  has  been 
objected  to,  from  the  religious  as  well  as  the  irreligious  side, 
as  irreverently  likening  the  action  of  the  Infinite  God  to  the 
contrivances  of  men. 

Yet  when  anything  subserves  a  purpose,  the  presumption 
is  that  it  was  made  for  that  purpose ;  and  this  presumption 
is  stronger  in  proportion  to  the  complication  of  the  instrument 
or  means,  the  complexity  of  the  purpose,  and  the  completeness 
of  the  adaptation  to  subserve  the  purpose ;  the  presumption 
increasing  so  rapidly  that  with  moderate  complexity  and 
completeness  of  adaptation  the  presumption  becomes  a  cer- 
tainty. Nor  is  there  any  valid  objection  to  applying  this 
argument  to  organic  structures.  Take,  for  illustration,  Soc- 
rates' example,  the  human  eye.  Consider  the  sensitiveness 
of  the  retina,  the  transparency  of  the  humors,  the  automatic 
variation  of  the  pupil ;  the  muscles  and  pulleys  of  various 
kinds ;  the  protection  by  lids,  lashes,  and  brows ;  the  fountains 
for  washing,  the  sewers  for  drainage ;  the  use  of  the  lid  to 
wipe  it ;  the  excellence  of  the  lenses,  the  approximate  achro- 
matism, the  adjustable  focal  length,  the  stereoscopic  effect 
of  the  binocular  arrangement.  As  we  run  over  this  com- 
plicated series  of  the  adaptations  of  the  eye  to  sight,  the 
presumption  that  eyes  were  made  for  seeing  becomes  an 
absolute  certainty. 

But  the  French  encyclopedists  answer :  No,  they  were  not 
made  at  all,  they  grew.  And  the  men  of  the  present  day 
undertake  to  tell  us  how  they  grew ;  how  the  sensitiveness 
to  light  diffused  over  the  whole  surface  of  the  zoophyte, 
being  a  little  more  concentrated  in  spots  upon  some  individ- 
uals gave  them  an  advantage  in  seeking  prey  or  avoiding 
danger,  and  thus,  by  natural  selection,  favored  those  that 


74      THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY.     [July, 

tended  to  have  eyes,  and  to  multiply  them,  and.  this  process 
after  millions  of  repetitions  gradually  formed  the  perfected 
human  eye.  If  these  dreamy  speculations  were  as  true,  as 
they  seem  to  me  false  ;  if  they  were  as  well  founded,  as  they 
seem  to  me  absolutely  baseless  ;  they  would  not  confute  the 
teleological  argument.  Such  a  process  of  developments  could 
not  take  place  by  chance  ;  the  result  of  the  process  is  such  as 
to  show  that  intelligence  presided  over  every  step,  whatever 
the  steps  may  have  been,  and  howsoever  numerous. 

The  encyclopedists  accused  the  theists  of  petitio  principii, 
of  assuming  that  the  eye  was  made,  and  arguing  from  the 
manner  of  its  making.  To  us  it  rather  seems  the  encyclope- 
dists begged  the  question,  assuming  that  growth  is  not  a 
building.  In  our  judgment  growth  is  a  building.  Men  work 
with  masses  of  finite  size,  nature  works  with  infinitesimal 
bricks.     When  the  sun, 

infusing  subtile  heats, 
Turns  the  sod  to  violets, 

he  makes  himself  a  servant  to  the  violet,  who  shows  him 
where  to  deposite  each  atom  of  matter,  so  as  to  build  the 
spade-shaped  leaf,  and  the  blue  corolla,  and  the  odorous  nec- 
tar, while  the  sun  complacently  obeys.  He  that  thinks  to  rob 
this  process  of  its  mystery  by  calling  it  simply  growth,  de- 
ceives himself  with  a  word.  Vegetable  growth  is  the  building 
up,  and  keeping  in  repair,  by  the  blind  forces  of  the  sunbeam, 
of  a  complicated,  but  symmetrical,  house  for  a  plant  to  dwell 
in.  Animal  growth  is  building  up,  and  keeping  in  repair,  by 
the  same  forces,  procured  at  second  hand,  through  the 
destruction  of  plants,  of  a  still  more  exquisite  house  for  an 
animal  to  live  in.  The  chemical  forces  have  no  choice  in 
building  a  man  or  a  zoophyte  ;  nor  can  they  be  guided  by  any 
merely  mechanical  pattern.  In  the  ovule  and  in  the  ovum 
is  contained  what  the  highest  microscopic  power  regards  as 
a  homogeneous  fluid.  Upon  the  outer  wall  of  the  sack  con- 
taining it,  comes  another  smaller  sack,  and  rests  there.  The 
fluids  in  these  two  sacks  probably  intermix  by  endosmosis. 
But  the  matter  thus  received  into  the  ovule  or  the  ovum  is 


1874.]        THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS   OF   THEOLOGY.  75 

an  infinitesimal  amount  of  fluid,  conveyed  by  filtration  through 
two  niters,  each  infinitely  close  in  texture.  Yet  it  distinctly 
modifies  the  form,  coloring,  size,  and  hardihood,  of  the  organ- 
ization that  springs  from  the  germ ;  and  in  the  case  of  the 
animal  determines,  sometimes  completely,  the  mental  and 
moral  character  of  the  offspring.  These  effects  can  scarcely 
be  imagined  as  the  result  of  any  merely  physical  properties 
in  that  minute  drop  of  filtered  liquid.  The  life  of  the  body 
does  not  depend  on  the  organization,  but  the  organization  on 
the  life.  The  building  of  the  body  is  the  work  of  thought, 
"which  was  originally  conscious  thought,  even  if  now  exercised 
by  an  unconscious  soul. 

But  we  are  sometimes  warned  from  teleological  arguments, 
on  very  different  grounds.  We  are  told  that  if  we  argue 
divine  benevolence  and  wisdom  from  natural  adaptations,  we 
should  also  argue  malevolence  and  folly  when  things  go  amiss. 
We  are  warned  that  the  moment  a  scientific  man  speaks  of 
the  purposes  of  creation,  he  has  stepped  out  of  his  sphere, 
and  is  no  longer  to  be  trusted.  These  warnings  come  from 
a  mistaken  view  of  the  subject.  When  an  anatomist,  con- 
vinced by  the  irresistible  logic  of  facts,  believes  that  the  eye 
was  made  for  seeing,  he  does  not  assume  any  knowledge  of 
the  divine  purposes  above  what  is  revealed  equally  to  all 
observers.  He  does  not,  therefore,  by  his  religious  inference, 
betray  any  self-conceit,  or  any  bias  that  would  bend  facts  to 
his  fancy  ;  he  merely  takes  the  position  of  Galen,  of  Cuvier, 
and  of  Agassiz.  These  men  were  aided  to  their  great  scien- 
tific discoveries  by  their  theistic  postulates ;  and  the  belief 
in  theism  cannot,  therefore,  be  fatal  to  scientific  accuracy 
and  research.  And  as  for  arguing  the  divine  malevolence 
from  suffering,  as  readily  as  the  divine  benevolence  from 
happiness, the  assertion  will  not  bear  a  moment's  examination ; 
the  only  logical  inference  on  the  teleologic  ground  would  be 
that  suffering  is  appointed  by  Infinite  Love  and  Wisdom  as  a 
means  to  some  higher  good. 

Persons  of  strong  religious  faith  very  often  object  to  hear- 
ing any  argument  from  final  causes,  because   they  deem  it 


76  THE  NATURAL   FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY.  [July, 

derogatory  to  the  dignity  of  faith,  to  suppose  that  she  needs 
the  aid  of  sight  or  logic ;  they  also  speak  of  the  argument 
from  design  as  implying  that  the  Deity  found  difficulties,  and 
contrived  ways  to  evade  them.  The  argument  is  thus  trebly 
offensive  to  them ;  affronting  faith,  likening  God  to  man,  and 
forgetting  his  infinity.  To  which  we  would  reply :  that  no 
teleologic  argument  is  intended  to  verify,  much  less  to  sup- 
plant, the  intuitions  of  faith,  but  as  an  independent  source  of 
religious  knowledge,  greatly  strengthening  and  comforting 
souls  deficient  in  those  intuitions  ;  nor  does  the  argument 
liken  the  Deity  to  man,  any  more  than  any  ascription  of 
wisdom  and  love  to  him.  All  devout  recognition  of  the  being 
of  God  calls  him  wise  and  good.  But  what  can  I  mean  by 
calling  him  wise,  if  I  am  not  permitted  to  recognize  his 
wisdom  in  the  perfect  adaptation,  throughout  the  universe, 
of  means  to  ends ;  if  I  am  not  permitted  to  trace,  in  the 
countless  evolutions  of  nature,  the  development  of  ideas  ? 
What  can  I  mean  by  calling  him  good,  if  I  am  not  permitted 
to  recognize  Ins  beneficent  purposes,  and  show  to  myself  how 
marvellously  all  things  unite  in  contributing  to  the  welfare, 
the  happiness,  the  instruction,  the  improvement  of  mankind  ? 
If  some  men  find  their  adoration  of  the  Infinite  God  grow 
more  humble  and  more  devout  as  they  thus  enjoy  what  they 
regard  the  highest  privilege  of  their  intellectual  nature,  in 
tracing  the  thoughts  and  purposes  of  God,  then  it  ought  not 
to  be  called  an  irreligious  or  irreverent  work. 

To  say  that  the  teleologic  argument  degrades  the  Infinite 
by  assigning  to  it  finite  thoughts  and  purposes,  is  simply  to 
fall  into  the  vice  of  arguing  from  the  Infinite.  We  are  told 
that  to  say  that  he  made  the  ear  for  hearing,  the  eye  for 
seeing,  is  limiting  the  action  of  the  Infinite  in  space  and  time  ; 
whereas  the  Infinite  can  act  only  throughout  all  space  and  all 
eternity  at  once.  Now  this  objection  does  the  very  thing  it 
falsely  accuses  the  teleologic  argument  of  doing :  it  limits 
and  debars  the  Infinite  from  a  possible  mode  of  action  ;  and 
from  a  mode  which  does  not  imply  finitude  in  the  actor.  It 
is  the  objectors  mere  assumption  that  the  teleologic  argument 


1874.]        THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY.  77 

limits  the  action  of  the  Infinite  to  the  particular  case  before 
us.  The  inference  that  eyes  were  made  for  seeing  does  not 
involve  the  inference  that  eyes  were  made  by  a  special  or 
finite  action.  It  only  implies  that  if  eyes  were  made  by 
general  laws,  the  Author  of  those  laws  foresaw  and  intended 
eyes  to  result ;  which  is  far  from  inconsistent  with  faith  in 
the  omniscience  of  the  Deity. 

If  we  were  going  to  argue  from  infinity  at  all,  a  sounder 
line  of  argument  would  tend  rather  to  justify  teleologic 
arguments  under  one  grand  conception  of  predestination. 
For  a  law  of  nature  is  a  thought,  in  conformity  to  which  a 
multitude  of  particulars  have  been  created  and  arranged ; 
and  it  thus  implies,  not  only  a  knowledge  of  the  whole,  but 
of  each  particular  result  of  the  general  law.  There  is,  there- 
fore, no  a  priori  reason  why  we  should  attempt  to  resist  the 
strong  presumption,  the  certainty,  arising  from  morphological 
and  teleological  arguments.  The  human  face  is,  perhaps,  the 
most  familiar  object  of  sight  that  greets  our  eyes.  For  this 
reason  we  see  suggestions  of  it  in  every  object  of  varied  out- 
line, rocky  cliffs,  summer  clouds,  double  flowers,  coals  upon 
the  hearth,  shadows  from  the  firelight,  etc.  Yet  if  the 
suggestion  merges  into  a  faithful  and  spirited  copy ;  if  the 
anatomical  detail  of  every  part  becomes  approximately  perfect, 
and  the  expression  strongly  human,  we  have  a  certainty  that 
art  has  interfered,  and  that  we  are  not  looking  at  the  creation 
of  chance.  When  a  piece  of  Grecian  statuary  is  recovered 
from  the  bed  of  the  Tiber  there  is  no  suspicion  that  it  is  a 
stalagmite  from  Antiparos.  And  if  there  be  any  doubt  about 
this  argument,  arising  from  the  fact  that  the  statue  is  a  copy 
of  a  work  of  nature,  consider  instead,  a  sonata  or  a  symphony. 
This  is  not  a  copy  of  nature ;  but  the  perfection  of  its  rhythmic 
symmetry  and  its  aesthetic  expression  stamp  it  as  infallibly 
the  work  of  mind. 

A  French  atheist  is  reported  to  have  said  :  "  Chance  can  do 
anything,  if  you  only  give  it  chances  enough  ; "  and  added 
that,  "  with  an  infinite  number  of  throws  he  could  throw  the 
Greek  alphabet  into  the  Iliad."     For,  he  seemed  to  imply, 


78      THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS  OF  THEOLOGY.     [Jn^y, 

from  an  infinite  number  of  throws,  there  results  an  infinite 
number  of  positions ;  therefore  all  positions ;  therefore  the 
position  in  which  the  letters  stand  in  the  Iliad.  But  the  first 
axiom  is  wrong ;  an  infinite  number  of  throws  will  not  give 
an  infinite  number  of  positions ;  and  the  inferences  are  wrong ; 
the  infinite  number  of  positions  would  not  give  all  positions. 
Give  Diderot  a  selection  of  only  those  particular  letters  which 
are  in  the  Iliad,  and  let  him  throw  with  inconceivable  rapidity 
to  all  eternity,  each  throw  would  produce  only  a  confused 
jumble  of  letters,  without  ever  producing  orderly  sentences. 
Now  in  the  book  of  the  Cosmos,  there  are  not  only  orderly 
and  intelligible  sentences,  but  it  is  all  in  order,  there  is  no 
jumble  ;  and  it  is  more  impossible  to  imagine  it  springing 
from  chance,  than  to  imagine  the  Iliad  thrown  from  a  dice 
box ;  or  Beethoven's  Christus  am  Oehlberg  produced  by  a 
dance  of  cats  upon  the  keyboard. 

The  ideologic  argument  in  its  narrower  sense  is  equally 
strong.  When  in  the  excavations  at  Pompeii,  or  at  Jerusalem 
or  on  the  Euphrates,  a  house  is  uncovered  filled  with  con- 
veniences and  tools  of  various  kinds,  it  is  absolutely  impos- 
sible for  a  sane  mind  to  entertain  the  question  whether  this 
is  the  work  of  intelligent  skill ;  we  know  it  as  we  know  our 
own  existence.  There  is  no  simply  intellectual  or  logical 
reason  why  our  certainty  should  not  be  as  great  at  finding 
ourselves  in  this  house  of  the  world,  filled  as  it  is  with  every 
conceivable  convenience  for  us,  and  furnished  with  admirable 
tools  wherewith  to  accomplish  our  work.  Run  rapidly,  with 
the  minds  eye,  over  some  of  these  materials ;  the  metals, 
minerals,  stones,  rock-oil,  coals,  water,  air,  gases,  all  adapted 
to  our  needs  ;  sand,  lime,  clay,  marbles,  granites,  sandstones, 
with  various  utilities  ;  the  sun's  light,  heat,  and  actinic  power, 
in  his  rays,  and  stored  in  the  beds  of  coal  and  petroleum ; 
oceans,  rivers,  rains,  and  dews  ;  the  plants  and  animals  in 
their  relation  to  us ;  the  human  frame  and  its  capacities  for 
delicate  operations  ;  consider  all  this  adaptation  ;  not  a  thing 
out  of  place,  not  a  thing  ill  adapted ;  all,  as  far  as  we  can 
discover,  fitted  perfectly  for  some  end  with  infinite  wisdom. 


1874.]  THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS   OF   THEOLOGY.  79 

How  can  wo  resist  the  conclusion  that  it  was  by  infinite 
wisdom  ?  How  can  we  resist  the  conclusion  that  the  won- 
derfully complicated  adaptation  of  so  many  means  to  these 
varied  ends,  keeping  up  the  beautiful  rhythmic  succession  of 
forms  in  plants  and  animals  from  generation  to  generation, 
is  from  the  presence  and  guidance  of  Intelligent  Thought  ? 

The  only  reasons  for  dissatisfaction  with  the  argument  arc 
moral,  not  intellectual.  Logically  the  teleologic  argument, 
like  the  morphologic,  is  impregnable  ;  it  is  one  of  those  c: 
as  satisfactory  as  any  demonstration,  in  which  the  induction 
converges  so  rapidly  towards  certainty,  as  to  produce  justly 
the  sense  of  certainty.  The  convergence  in  this  case  is 
manifold  ;  the  argument  is  drawn  from  an  uncounted  number 
of  cases,  each  offering  adaptations  of  great  complexity  and 
great  perfection.  The  cases  are  also  indefinitely  varied  in 
character;  some  referring  to  mechanical,  some  to  chemical, 
to  physiological,  some  even  to  intellectual  and  to  moral  ends, 
such  as  the  education  and  refinement  of  man,  and  all  these 
varied  ends  accomplished  by  a  complex  arrangement  of  well- 
adapted  means.  Such  a  convergence  of  numerous  lines  of 
the  highest  possible  inductive  proof  can  be  brought  for  no 
other  truth.  Nor  must  we  forget  that,  in  regard  to  mechan- 
ical ends,  the  mathematician  can  frequently  give  a  priori 
demonstrations  that  the  means  are  the  best  possible.  Thus 
it  may  be  demonstrated  that  a  division  of  the  circumference 
in  extreme  and  mean  ratio,  gives  to  the  leaves  of  plants  the 
fairest  possible  law  of  access  to  air  and  light ;  and  gives  to 
the  planets  the  fairest  possible  chance  of  revolving  around 
the  sun  undisturbed  by  their  neighbors. 

Logically  the  arguments  from  the  external  world  are  unas- 
sailable, and  the  being  of  an  intelligent  God  is  proved  by  an 
induction  far  stronger  than  that  which  sustains  the  law  of 
gravitation  or  the  correlation  of  forces.  The  lack  of  earnest 
conviction  arises  from  moral  causes,  which  may,  perhaps,  be 
classed  under  three  heads  :  First,  there  is  an  illusion  ari  ing 
from  the  absence  of  any  chaos  to  contrast  with  the  Cosmos. 
The  universal  prevalence  everywhere  of  this  perfect  harmony 

Vol.  XXXI.  No.  123.  58 


80  THE  NATURAL  FOUNDATIONS   OF  THEOLOGY.  [July, 

and  adaptation  of  part  to  part,  produces  the  feeling  that  there 
must  be  a  necessity  for  it.  Men  are  like  children,  accustomed 
from  birth  to  the  luxuries  of  their  father's  house,  until  they 
think  them  things  of  course,  and  forget  their  obligation  to 
his  care  and  forethought  in  providing  them.  Secondly, 
there  is  in  many  hearts,  undoubtedly,  a  sense  of  guilt,  gener- 
ating a  half -unconscious  fear ;  and  that  producing  a  willing- 
ness to  find  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  righteous  God 
defective.  Even  where  the  alienation  from  God  is  not 
sufficient  to  produce  this  reluctance  to  be  convinced,  it  may 
be  sufficient  to  produce  exclusive  devotion  to  other  lines  of 
thought,  and  consequent  failure  to  appreciate  the  argument. 
But,  thirdly,  there  are  causes  of  dissatisfaction,  with  the 
arguments  of  Paley,  of  the  Bridgewater  Treatises,  and  the 
Graham  Lectures,  more  creditable  to  a  Christian  community. 
With  some  there  is  a  strength  of  religious  faith,  springing 
from  direct  intuitions,  that  lays  hold  of  God  so  firmly  as  to 
need  no  support  of  consciously  drawn  inferences  ;  with  others 
there  is  an  intense  longing  for  assurance,  a  quivering,  tremb- 
ling, burning  hope,  which  fears  that,  perhaps,  so  ineffably 
precious  a  doctrine  as  the  presence  of  a  God  of  infinite 
wisdom  and  love,  caring  not  only  for  all,  but  for  each,  of  his 
children  cannot  be  true.  Would  that  these  timid,  longing, 
loving,  souls  could  attain  to  our  conviction,  that  the  presence 
of  such  a  Father  is  demonstrated  by  every  possibility  of 
argument ;  and  that  the  language  of  Herbert  Spencer  con- 
cerning the  existence  of  an  ultimate  cause  may  be  justly  used 
concerning  the  existence  of  God  in  the  highest,  the  holiest, 
the  most  loving  and  tender  sense,  in  which  the  happiest 
experience  of  a  soul  reconciled  by  Christ  and  sanctified  by 
the  Spirit  can  speak  of  him ;  namely,  that  we  have  a  higher 
warrant  for  believing  in  God  than  for  believing  in  any  other 
truth  whatever. 


THE 


BIBLIOTHECA    SACRA. 


ARTICLE    I. 
THE   TESTIMONY   OF   ORGANIC   LIFE. 

BJ  THOMAS  HILL,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  FORMERLY  PRESIDENT  OF  HARVARD  COLLEGE. 

We  have  endeavored,  in  this  Journal  for  the  current  year, 
to  show  that  the  morphological  and  teleological  arguments, 
drawn  from  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms,  are,  in  their 
value,  independent  of  all  theories  concerning  the  development 
and  succession  of  animals  and  plants.  We  have  said  that  no 
form  of  the  development  theory  is  satisfactory,  or  properly 
deduced  from  facts ;  yet  the  grand  theological  axiom  of  the 
divine  economy,  so  fruitful  of  scientific  results  in  the  mechani- 
cal principle  of  the  least  action,  authorizes  us  to  expect  some 
better  theory  in  the  future,  which  will  accord  with  the  facts 
of  the  case.  That  better  theory  will  not  ignore  the  theolog- 
ical foundation,  on  which  all  true  science  is,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  built,  —  the  assumption  that  there  is  a  divine 
plan,  an  intellectual  order,  in  the  economy  of  nature. 

The  fundamental  antithesis  of  philosophy  is  the  distinction 
between  mind  and  matter ;  an  antithesis  which  cannot  be 
ignored  by  science  when  it  approaches  the  boundaries  of 
metaphysics.  Yet  in  the  speculations  of  a  philosopher,  not 
scientific,  and  of  a  scientist  not  metaphysical,  there  some- 
times appears  a  confusion  of  thought,  leading  them  to  suspect 
the  identity  of  matter  and  spirit.  Thus  Huxley  apparently 
wonders  at  himself,  that  he  should  be  "  individually  no  mate- 

Vol.  XXXI.  No.  124.  —  October,  1874.        75 


82  THE   TESTIMONY  OF  ORGANIC   LIFE.  [Oct 

rialist,  but  on  the  contrary  believe  materialism  to  involve 
grave  philosophical  error  "  ;  while  he  yet  "  can  see  no  break 
in  the  series  of  steps  "  by  which  "  carbon,  hydrogen,  oxygen, 
and  nitrogen,"  "  all  lifeless  bodies,"  unite  in  varied  propor- 
tions, and  in  varied  conditions,  in  more  or  less  complex 
bodies,  of  which  one  of  the  most  complex  is  protoplasm, 
which  "  protoplasm  exhibits  the  phenomena  of  life."  From 
this  point  again  he  sees  no  logical  halting-place,  between  the 
admission  that  such  is  the  case,  and  the  further  concession 
that  all  vital,  intellectual,  and  moral  actions  are  the  results 
of  the  molecular  forces  of  protoplasm. 

Huxley's  wonder  that  he  retains  his  faith  in  spirit,  while 
admitting  the  existence  of  protoplasm,  in  the  unproved  and 
improbable  form  above  stated,  may  arise  from  his  never  having 
examined  and  appreciated  the  logical  grounds  of  his  spiritual 
faith.  There  is  nothing  in  the  modern  discoveries  of  the 
correlation  of  forces  (sublime  triumph  of  science  as  it  is), 
any  more  inconsistent  with  spiritual  philosophy  than  the 
familiar  facts  of  sleep,  fatigue,  exhilaration,  birth,  and  death. 

In  this  workshop  of  nature,  in  which  men  are  put  as  appren- 
tices, are  various  simple  raw  materials ;  among  them  the 
four  organogens  enumerated  by  Huxley.  Under  proper  con- 
ditions, of  heat  and  light  and  other  molecular  forces,  they 
combine  in  various  compounds.  By  the  art  of  the  chemist, 
varying  the  conditions,  a  still  greater  number  of  compounds 
is  produced.  In  plants  and  animals  there  is  a  yet  greater 
variety  of  products  ;  but  the  brilliant  success  of  the  chemists 
during  the  last  few  decades  leads  them  to  hope  that  they  will 
ultimately  be  able  to  produce  from  the  elementary  organogens 
all  organic  products.  Enthusiasts  also  expect  to  produce 
from  organic  elements  organic  beings.  And  this  is  the 
precise  point  at  which  the  confusion  arises  in  the  passages 
which  I  have  quoted  from  Huxley ;  the  confounding  of  or- 
ganic products  with  organic  forms.  Organic  products,  if  not 
amorphous,  have  only  a  crystalline  form  ;  their  whole  consti- 
tution is  explicable  on  chemical  laws,  and  atomic  figures. 

Not  so  with  organic  form  and  vitality.     The  chemical  and 


1874.]  THE  TESTIMONY    OF   ORGANIC   LIFE.  83 

atomic  laws  give  coherence  to  the  organic  body ;  but  neither 
give  life  nor  the  specific  form.  The  best  judges,  even  among 
those  who  desire  to  uphold  the  doctrine  of  spontaneous  gen- 
eration, admit  that,  up  to  this  date,  all  experiments  have 
failed  to  show  its  possibility  ;  and  that  the  axiom  of  Aristotle 
stands  unimpeached  :  Every  animal  from  an  egg  ;  every  plant 
from  a  seed.  There  is  no  conclusive  evidence  of  a  protoplasm 
exhibiting  the  phenomena  of  life,  without  an  organic  form. 
Here  is  the  logical  break  in  the  series  of  steps  for  which 
Huxley  asks ;  it  is  in  passing  from  organic  or  organizable 
product,  to  organic  life  and  organic  form.  Careful  physio- 
logical research  has  shown  that  there  is  no  vital  force ;  all 
the  forces  in  the  plant,  or  animal,  are  chemical,  or  other 
familiar  molecular  forms  of  force ;  there  is  no  vital  force ; 
but  there  is  a  vital  guidance  of  forces,  leading  them  in  the  or- 
ganized body,  not  only  to  unite  in  peculiar  chemical  products, 
but  to  build  peculiar  forms,  wholly  unlike  crystalline  forms, 
and  wholly  inexplicable  by  any  general  laws,  so  far  as  the 
imagination  of  our  best  mathematicians  can  conceive. 

Now  this  vitality,  not  correlated  with  the  forces  by  which 
it  builds  the  plant  and  the  animal,  —  what  is  it,  and  in  what 
does  it  adhere  ?  In  the  organized  matter  ?  If  the  old  views 
of  vital  force  had  stood  under  scientific  examination ;  if  it 
had  been  shown  that  in  the  organism  a  new  form  of  force 
was  developed,  correlated  with  the  other  forms,  then  we 
might  have  answered,  yes,  it  is  a  result  of  the  organization. 
But  it  is  not  a  force,  it  is  an  ability  to  guide  forces ;  ruling 
them  not  by  force,  but  by  something  that  can  be  compared 
only  to  an  intellectual  guidance.  It  thus  shows  its  kindred 
to  thought,  to  the  soul,  and  gives  us,  even  in  the  lowest  forms 
of  vegetable  life,  the  fundamental  antithesis  between  matter 
and  spirit.  But,  as  we  have  various  planes  on  which  matter 
lies  —  the  elementary,  the  composite,  the  vegetable,  the 
animal, —  and  it  requires  force  to  lift  matter  from  one  plane 
to  another,  and  sets  force  free  for  work  when  matter  falls 
back  again  towards  the  elementary  form ;  so,  also,  we  have 
spirit  in  various  planes  —  in  vegetable,  in  animal  life,  in  un- 


84  THE  TESTIMONY   OF   ORGANIC  LIFE.  [Oct. 

derstanding,  reason,  appetite,  instinct,  sentiment,  in  uncon- 
scious, conscious,  in  involuntary  and  in  voluntary  action  — 
although  we  have  not  discovered  any  law  by  which  it  can 
pass  from  one  plane  to  another. 

Yet  the  existence  of  a  something  different  from  matter 
and  force  in  each  of  these,  and  higher  forms,  is  avouched  to 
us  by  the  exhibition  of  phenomena  for  which  no  conceivable 
action  of  matter  and  force  will  account.  The  materialistic 
school  of  psychologists  endeavors  to  reduce  all  this  diversity 
of  psychical  development  to  simple  law,  and  to  show  how 
the  unreasoning,  apathetic,  sightless,  and  deaf  zoophyte, 
gradually  grew  into  man,  with  his  perfected  senses,  his  ex- 
alted feelings,  his  soaring  imagination,  his  glowing  faith,  his 
rapt  devotion.  To  us  their  endeavors  seem  to  be  total  fail- 
ures ;  they  need  an  infinite  unrecorded  time  in  which  to 
effect  the  recorded  changes ;  while  not  only  does  physics 
show  that  the  planet's  whole  duration  has  been  occupied  in 
depositing  the  stratified  rocks  recording  the  mere  results  of 
the  changes ;  but  the  very  appeal  to  infinite  time  to  effect 
what  finite  time  shows  no  tendency  to  do,  is  a  concealed 
fallacy,  arguing  from  the  infinite,  which  it  is  not  lawful  to 
do,  and  which  justifies  Agassiz  in  his  sarcastically  referring 
them  to  Chamisso's  "  Tragische  Geschichte."  But,  granting 
that  they  had  succeeded  in  showing  how  the  present  diversity 
came,  this  would  not  alter  the  conclusion  whence  it  came. 
The  adaptation  of  the  world  to  this  process  of  development, 
and  to  the  creatures  in  each  stage  of  the  development ;  and 
the  adaptation  of  the  primal  laws  of  nature,  to  produce  such 
an  orderly,  intelligible  development,  would  still  force  us  to 
ascribe  it  to  an  intelligence  of  infinite  wisdom  and  power  as 
its  source. 

We  hold,  therefore,  that  whatever  may  be  the  fate  of  the 
modern  development  theories  ;  whether,  as  their  authors 
hope,  established  as  scientific  facts,  or  whether  sent,  as  we 
predict,  finally  to  the  oblivion  of  forgotten  dreams ;  the 
adaptation  of  instincts  to  the  organization,  and  to  the  world, 
is  one  of  the  invincible  arguments  for  the  being  of  God. 


1874.]  THE  TESTIMONY  OF  ORGANIC  LIFE.  85 

The  honey-bee  presents  a  hacknied  example,  but  we  select 
it  as  an  illustration  on  that  very  account,  that  we  may  not 
deceive  ourselves  with  any  false  facts.  This  insect  lives 
upon  honey  as  its  principal  food,  and  in  this  climate,  stores 
it  away  during  the  summer  months,  as  if  for  future  use ; 
stores  it  in  cells,  built  of  wax  secreted  from  between  the 
rings  of  its  own  abdomen ;  and  uses  this  wax  chiefly  for  the 
manufacture  of  cells  to  hold  honey,  or  to  hold  young  bees. 
They  live  in  large  families,  consisting  each  of  one  female, 
some  dozens  of  males,  and  some  hundreds  of  apparent  neuters. 
The  work  of  building  cells,  gathering  honey,  feeding  the 
young,  etc.,  is  done  by  these  neuters ;  and  if  the  female  is 
killed  or  removed,  the  neuters  make  a  larger  cell,  and  placing 
in  it  an  egg  which  would  apparently  have  otherwise  developed 
into  a  neuter,  make  it  become  a  female.  She  was  by  the 
ancients  called  the  king,  by  the  moderns  is  called  the  queen. 
We  have  seen  her  walking  among  an  immense  multitude  of 
her  subjects,  a  way  being  cleared  for  her  sacred  person, 
whichever  way  she  turned,  so  that  she  never  came  in  contact 
with  any  of  the  crowd.  This  apparent  sanctity  of  person  is 
probably  what  has  given  the  female  bee  titles  of  royalty 
from  men. 

Now  the  argument  may  be  thus  stated.  The  bees  lay  up 
honey,  as  if  by  foresight  of  a  failure  of  food  in  the  winter. 
They  have  a  peculiar  power  of  secreting  wax  ;  and  peculiar 
skill  in  using  it  to  build  cells.  They  are  without  developed 
gender,  but  seem  to  know  the  office  of  the  sexes,  kill  the 
males  after  the  pairing,  bestow  upon  the  future  mother  the 
most  obsequious  attention,  and  watch  her  eggs  and  feed  her 
young  with  tenderest  care.  If  this  mother  perishes,  they 
provide  a  new  mother,  by  developing,  through  proper  care, 
the  female  sex  in  an  egg  otherwise  about  to  give  rise  to  a 
neuter  like  themselves.  The  inference  is  incontrovertible 
that  their  mental  and  moral  faculties,  or  the  instinctive 
desires  and  volitions  which  stand  for  them,  arc  exquisitely 
adapted  to  their  organization  and  to  the  actual  condition  of 
the  world.     A  second  inference  is,  to  us,  equally  irresistible, 


86  THE  TESTIMONY   OF    OKGANIC  LIFE.  [Oct 

that  this  intelligible  adaptation  sprang  from  intelligence  in 
the  cause.  The  argument  may  be  considered  a  branch  of 
the  teleological,  the  argument  from  means  and  ends ;  only 
that,  in  this  case,  the  means  are  partly  spiritual, — the  instincts, 
and  amount  of  reasoning  power,  adapted  to  the  creature,  its 
needs  and  opportunities.  Why  should  the  bee  hoard  its 
honey,  more  than  the  fly  ?  Why  not  cast  her  wax  as  the 
aphis  his  honey-dew  ?  Why  should  the  neuter  care  for  the 
eggs  of  the  queen,  or  feed  the  young  ?  Why  should  they, 
when  a  queen  is  lost,  enlarge  a  cell  about  a  young  grub,  and 
so  change  its  food,  as  to  develop  its  sex  ?  It  is  difficult  to 
conceive  that,  in  the  infrequent  losses  of  a  queen,  this  mode 
of  replacing  her  could  have  been  discovered  by  accident,  or 
have  been  handed  down  by  tradition,  or  inherited,  when  dis- 
covered. All  the  ingenious  cobwebs  of  the  natural  selection 
of  species  and  of  the  evolution  theory  in  psychology  seems 
to  me,  swept  away  by  such  facts  as  these ;  and  we  are  shut 
up  to  our  reference  of  all  to  the  intelligent  choice  and  plan 
of  the  Creator. 

The  bee's  cell  is  perhaps  an  even  more  hacknied  theme, 
but  the  argument  is  alike  unassailable.  The  honeycomb 
consists  of  two  sets  of  hexagonal  cells  standing  bottom  to 
bottom.  The  material  of  which  they  are  made  is  as  precious 
as  the  pelican's  blood,  and  must  be  used  with  economy  ;  the 
food  stored  in  them  is  liquid,  the  cells  need  therefore  to  be 
watertight  and  strong  to  resist  pressure.  Wax  is  waterproof, 
hexagons  pack  close,  and  have  the  shortest  sides  among 
figures  that  will  pack  close.  The  cells  are  set,  one  over 
three ;  making  each  floor  supported  by  three  partitions  run- 
ning to  its  centre  ;  and  the  floor  is  sunk  in  the  centre  so  as  to 
save  more  from  shortening  the  partitions,  than  is  lost  in 
enlarging  the  floor.  We,  of  course,  concede  that  the  hexagons 
are  not  perfect ;  that  the  comers  of  the  cells  are  not  dug  out 
perfectly  clean ;  that  the  thickness  of  the  walls  is  not  abso- 
lutely uniform ;  that  the  sinking  of  the  floor  varies  slightly, 
and  that  the  average  of  the  measurements  may  not  give  the 
exact  depth  required  for  the   greatest  saving.     Neither   in 


1874.]  THE  TESTIMONY  OF  ORGANIC  LIFE.  87 

1830,  when,  in  childhood,  we  first  heard  of  the  problem,  nor 
in  1842,  when  we  made  and  measured  plaster  casts  of  empty 
combs,  did  we  suppose  the  measures  would  perfectly  coincide 
with  the  theoretic  forms.  The  cells  are  built  to  hold  honey, 
a  practical  end,  for  which,  approximation  is  all  that  is  neces- 
sary. Perfection  in  execution  would  be  a  waste  of  time  and 
labor,  forbidden  by  the  same  divine  economy  which  prescribes 
the  law.  The  bee  shows  herself  a  better  mathematician  in 
not  using  seven-place  tables,  where  three-place  answer  every 
purpose.  The  organization  which  secretes  wax,  and  the 
instinct  which  leads  her  to  use  it  in  cells,  hexagonal,  fitted 
one  against  three,  closed  at  the  end  with  three  rhomboids, 
brought  to  a  practical  working  finish,  slighty  varied  to  suit 
circumstances,  are  so  admirably  adapted  to  each  other,  as 
to  constitute  a  revelation  of  wise,  intelligent  thought,  of 
which  we  cannot  suppose  the  bee  conscious.  "What  her 
conscious  purpose  is,  may  be  a  matter  of  debate  ;  but,  how- 
ever decided,  the  decision  cannot  affect  the  main  inference, 
that  a  higher  intelligence  made  these  three  things  —  the 
world,  the  bee's  body,  and  its  soul  to  fit  each  the  other. 
Goethe  is  truer  than  his  wont  when  he  sings  : 

From  the  cold  earth,  in  earliest  spring, 
A  flower  peeped  out,  —  dear  fragrant  thing ! 
Then  sipped  a  bee,  as  half  afraid ; 
Sure  each  was  for  the  other  made. 

And  the  bee  was  made  for  the  flower  in  another  sense.  The 
fertilisation  of  the  flower,  the  perfection  of  the  seed,  and 
perpetuation  of  the  species  depends  largely  upon  the  agency 
of  bees.  No  more  conclusive  book  in  proof  of  the  presence 
of  thought  and  design  in  the  arrangement  of  the  world  can 
be  found  than  Darwin's  popular  account  of  the  fertilization 
of  the  orchids  ;  and,  perhaps,  no  more  curious  instance  of  a 
writer  bringing  forward  a  vast  array  of  facts  not  to  draw 
from  them  the  inference  to  which  they  naturally  lead,  but  to 
twist  them  into  the  support  of  a  whimsical  theory. 

We   have   given  this   example  of  the  bee,  as  a  familiar 
illustration   of   the   argument  which   immediately   suggesta 


88  THE  TESTIMONY   OF  ORGANIC  LIFE.  [Oct 

itself  on  witnessing  the  harmony  between  the  sensible  and 
the  intellectual  universe ;  between  the  world  cognizable  by 
sense,  and  the  world  cognizable  in  consciousness,  and  in 
the  realm  opened  to  reason  and  imagination  by  the  facts  of 
consciousness.  Each  species  of  plant  finds  its  proper  soil 
and  climate ;  each  kind  of  animal  finds  its  home  and  food 
and  mate,  and  lives  according  to  its  structural  needs.  "  All 
is  well  and  wisely  put."  Even  should  we  limit  ourselves 
to  the  nest-building  instincts  of  animals,  we  should  have  an 
almost  inexhaustible  field  of  research  ;  so  numerous  are  the 
species  which  show  a  talent  precisely  adapted  to  their  wants, 
from  the  hermit-crab,  who  takes  possession  of  an  empty 
mollusk's  shell,  to  the  Indo-European  man,  who  builds  his 
modern  cities. 

The  bee  lives  upon  honey,  and  makes  good  wax.  Feed 
her  upon  sugar,  and  her  wax  becomes  viscous  and  useless. 
The  appetite  for  food  is  a  striking  instance  of  the  adaptation 
of  instincts  to  organization.  The  kid  cut  from  the  goat, 
killed,  skinned,  and  the  skin  carried  away  before  the  little 
prisoner  was  released,  selected  goat's  milk,  in  preference 
to  other  liquids  set  before  it.  How  rarely  even  domesticated 
animals  eat  poisonous  herbs,  which  we  know  are  abundant  in 
their  pastures.  Even  foreign  plants,  which  neither  they  nor 
their  ancestors  can  have  seen  for  many  generations,  are 
selected  or  rejected  with  almost  unfailing  accuracy.  Some 
insects  select  plants  of  a  single  botanical  f amily ;  the  Asterias 
butterfly  takes  parsnips  or  caraway  for  its  young ;  but, 
although  thus  varying  so  widely  in  her  selection,  never  lays 
her  eggs,  so  far  as  we  have  observed,  upon  any  but  umbelli- 
ferous plants. 

Another  familiar  and  oft-quoted  example  of  instinct  adapted 
to  organization  is  found  in  the  young  mammal's  power  of 
suction.  In  this  class  of  animals  there  is  a  peculiar  closeness 
of  connection  between  the  offspring  and  the  mother,  first  in 
gestation,  afterward  in  lactation  —  a  connection  bearing  so 
many  evidences  of  intelligent  adaptation  that  we  may  well 
excuse  those  who  feel  impatient  at  any  denial  of  the  cogency 


1874.]  THE  TESTIMONY  OF  ORGANIC   LIFE.  89 

of  the  argument.  The  young  creature,  growing  at  first 
within  its  mother,  takes,  as  it  were,  her  blood  into  its  circu- 
lation, and  is  nourished  wholly  by  it  —  straining  it,  however, 
through  a  layer  of  four  thicknesses  of  fine  membranes,  so 
that  there  is  no  actual  passage  of  red  blood  from  one  to  the 
other,  and  the  larger  proportion  of  the  mother's  diseases  are 
thus  excluded  from  the  offspring's  life.  While  this  is  going 
on,  the  mammary  glands  are  preparing  for  a  connection  to 
be  renewed  externally  after  birth.  In  the  marsupials  the 
young  are  born  so  young,  so  small,  and  so  partially  developed, 
that  they  are  conveyed  by  the  mother's  tongue  to  the  nipples 
within  her  pouch,  where  they  cling  by  an  involuntary  con- 
striction of  the  muscles  of  their  mouths.  They  have  not 
strength,  at  first,  to  draw  the  milk,  and  the  mother  injects 
it,  by  muscular  action  about  the  nipples,  into  their  stomachs. 
As  they  breathe  by  lungs,  this  process  would  be  dangerous, 
and  probably  fatal,  did  not  a  membranous  funnel  lead  down 
their  throats  past  the  opening  to  the  windpipe.  In  these 
facts,  furnishing  such  an  irresistible  teleologic  argument, 
there  is  also  one  step  of  marvellous  instinct,  that  which  leads 
the  mother  to  receive  her  helpless  young  upon  her  tongue, 
and  convey  them  to  the  nipple.  That  link  failing,  the  whole 
process  would  fail.  Indeed,  that  is  the  reply  which  we 
recently  heard  made  to  the  whole  of  the  morphologic  and 
teleologic  arguments.  "  The  presence  of  a  perfect  intel- 
lectual plan  and  order,  or  harmony  of  events,  proves  nothing," 
we  were  told,  "  because  such  plan  or  order  is  the  necessary 
condition  of  the  existence  of  the  universe — we  cannot  conceive 
of  a  universe  without  it."  The  objection  might  be  parodied  by 
saying  that  the  demonstrations  of  the  Principia  and  the  har- 
mony of  Paradise  Regained  prove  nothing  concerning  Newton 
and  Milton,  because  demonstration  is  the  essence  of  a  book 
on  mechanics,  and  harmony,  of  a  poem.  The  simplest  answer 
would  be  to  point  out  volumes  of  weak  and  rough  writing, 
and  to  turn  the  telescope  upon  a  nebula  or  upon  the  moon. 
In  Mammals  not  marsupial  the  young  creature  at  birth 
goes  at  once  to  the  mother's  nipple,  and  instantly  begins  to 

Vol.  XXXI.  No.  124.  76 


90  THE  TESTIMONY   OF   ORGANIC  LIFE.  [Oct 

draw  milk.  Tho  glands  begin  to  secrete  a  fluid  adapted  to 
the  needs  of  the  young ;  dry  until  that  time,  they  at  first  yield 
a  watery  fluid,  and  then  milk  —  a  food,  again,  eliminating 
most  of  the  weaknesses  or  disease  of  the  mother's  constitu- 
tion,—  and  this  continues  until  the  little  one  is  able  to  turn 
to  the  food  upon  which  the  adult  lives.  This  coincidence 
in  the  appearance  of  the  supply  at  the  moment  of  the 
demand  is  not  to  be  ascribed  to  chance,  nor  is  it  easy  to 
trace  the  causal  connection  between  the  gravid  uterus  and 
the  expanding  mammary  gland.  But  we  have  quoted  the 
instance  with  special  reference  to  the  adaptation  of  the 
instinct  to  the  organization.  The  act  of  drawing  milk  from 
the  nipple  and  swallowing  it,  while  still  the  process  of 
breathing  is  going  on,  —  both  processes  being  entirely  new 
to  the  infant,  —  is  a  very  difficult  one,  implying  a  voluntary 
command  over  several  sets  of  muscles.  It  is  still  further 
complicated  in  the  Cetacca  by  the  necessity  of  exercising  it 
while  floating  in  the  salt  ocean.  The  new-born  whale  or 
porpoise  must,  at  the  moment  of  birth,  practise  three  new  arts, 
and  prove  a  proficient  in  each,  —  swimming,  breathing,  and 
sucking,  —  under  penalty  of  drowning,  strangling,  or  starving 
if  he  fails  in  either ;  but  his  instinctive  genius  enables  him 
to  triumph  and  be  happy  under  this  triple  Draconian  law. 
The  human  infant  has  but  the  two  arts  to  acquire,  and  he 
shows  himself  as  ready  as  anv  of  the  lower  mammals.  It 
seldom  needs  so  much  as  a  sprinkle  of  cold  water  on  the 
face  to  set  him  to  breathing,  or  more  than  fifteen  minute's 
breathing  in  a  tolerably  pure  air  to  set  him  to  hunting  for 
his  mother's  breast,  and  to  exhibiting  signs  of  temper  and 
resentment  if  it  is  not  given.  He  draws  as  well  at  the  be- 
ginning as  ever ;  nay,  it  is  to  be  particularly  noticed  that  if 
he  does  not  immediately  begin  to  practise  the  art,  he  in  a 
very  few  days  loses  the  faculty.  The  instinctive  desire  to 
suck  is  not  exhibited  before  birth,  as  is  evident  upon  the 
slightest  thought ;  it  is  shown  with  great  vigor  within  an 
hour  after  birth ;  and  if  not  gratified,  that  is,  if  nourishment 
is  given  by  a  spoon  only,  it  is  lost  in  a  few  days,  and  even 


\ 

1874.]  THE   TESTIMONY   OF  ORGANIC  LIFE.  91 

the  power  is  lost  with  it,  and  cannot  he  regained  for  years. 
What  other  explanation  of  such  facts  is  credible  than  that 
this  instinctive  desire  and  ability  was  implanted  by  the 
Creator  with  a  wise  adaptation  to  the  whole  organization  of 
the  parent  and  offspring.  Every  attempt  to  explain  this 
instinct  in  the  manner  of  Bain  seems  to  us  ingenious  trifling, 
improbable  as  the  chimeras  of  Eastern  fancy ;  hut  suppose 
them  true,  and  grant  that  the  organization  and  instincts  of 
the  mammals  were  gradually  developed  from  those  of  the 
mollusks,  you  will  still  be  forced  to  acknowledge  that  the 
wondrous  harmony  between  the  instincts  and  the  organization 
must  have  sprung  from  foreordaining  thought. 

The  bee,  gathering  honey,  carries  pollen  from  flower  to 
flower,  and  fertilizes  the  ovaries.  We  imitate  the  process 
with  a  downy  feather,  and  produce  hybrids  ;  but  the  bee 
almost  never  produces  a  hybrid.  She  does  not  like,  it  appears, 
a  variety  at  a  meal,  and  confines  herself  at  one  ramble  to  a 
particular  species.  And,  rare  as  the  accident  of  hybridization 
in  plants  or  wild  animals  may  be,  there  seems  to  be  a  pro- 
vision for  eliminating  its  effects,  and  the  descendants  of 
hybrids  are  inclined  to  revert  to  one  of  the  original  stocks. 
Addison  has  written  a  few  lines  upon  the  marvellous  instinct 
by  which  each  species  of  animal  knows  its  own  mate,  however 
diverse  from  itself,  and  is  never  deceived  by  a  close  likeness. 
The  instinct  for  selecting  food,  excellent  as  it  is,  is  deceived 
much  more  frequently  than  the  sexual.  We  have  seen  a 
dragon-fly  catch  a  small  moth,  and  drop  it  as  if  in  disgust : 
toads  pick  up  pebbles  and  violet-buds  thrown  before  them. 
The  instinct  of  predaccous  creatures  seems  frequently  foiled 
by  the  likeness  of  insects  to  other  strong-flavored  or  poisonous 
insects.  The  eye  of  hunger  and  robbery  is  thus  sometimes 
deceived  ;  but  "  The  lover's  eye  can  look  an  eagle  blind  "  ; 
and  we  do  not  know  of  any  instance  of  mongrel  or  hybrid 
issue  arising  from  any  such  mistakes. 

If  this  preservation  of  the  order  of  the  animal  kingdom, 
through  this  instinct  recognizing  the  mate  however  disguised, 
and  rejecting  all  others  however  closely  resembling,  arises 


92  THE  TESTIMONY  OF   ORGANIC  LIFE.  [Oct. 

from  a  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms,  then  the  compositors 
might  have  set  up  this  Article  with  a  dice-box,  without  seeing 
the  manuscript.  The  great  diversity  of  species  has  been 
preserved  unchanged  and  unaltered  for  thousands  of  years, 
by  the  power  of  an  instinct  acting  in  the  mind  of  each  creature 
in  the  countless  multitude,  leading  each  to  the  right  selection 
of  its  mate.  Development  theories  strive  to  show  how  these 
instincts  were  evolved  out  of  sexless,  protoplasmic  cells. 
Grant  them  their  eternities  of  evolution,  and  their  numerous 
blanks  in  the  record,  covering  vastly  longer  periods  than  the 
records  themselves  cover,  and  concede  that  they  can  show 
the  steps  by  which  it  was  all  brought  about ;  still,  the  ex- 
quisite beauty  and  perfection  of  the  results  would  demonstrate 
that  a  word  of  infinite  wisdom  had  created  the  sexes  thus 
adapted  to  each  other  in  all  organized  beings,  and  caused 
them  to  repeat,  through  so  many  ages,  the  wonderful  inter- 
twisted harmony  of  their  relations. 

Man's  architectural  talents  are  declared,  in  the  Jewish 
Scriptures,  to  be  an  inspiration  of  God.  He  also  gave  us  our 
appetites  and  passions,  and  we  may  expect  to  find  in  them  the 
same  evidence  of  wise  and  kind  foresight  as  in  the  instincts 
of  animals.  But  man  is  free  ;  his  soul  certainly  stands  on  a 
higher  plane  than  that  of  the  animals ;  and  he  abuses  his 
freedom  by  making  his  appetites  and  passions  his  masters 
and  his  destroyers.  Yet  it  is  well  shown,  in  John  Ware's 
little  book  on  the  True  Relation  of  the  Sexes,  that  fastidious- 
ness of  taste  and  vigor  of  appetite,  in  civilized  man,  have 
been  the  spring  of  important  enterprises,  and  the  remote 
cause  of  a  large  part  of  human  art  and  refinement.  Agri- 
culture, manufactures,  navigation,  foreign  commerce,  arising 
primarily  from  this  source,  bring  wealth,  leisure,  civilization, 
science,  literature,  philanthropy.  Nor  should  we  forget  what 
social  pleasures  and  social  virtues  are  connected  with  eating 
—  good-fellowship,  kindness,  charity,  hospitality,  and  love. 
The  holiest  rite  of  the  holiest  religion  on  earth  is  in  the 
form  of  a  supper,  and  the  highest  hope  of  its  disciples  is  to 
be  admitted  to  the  marriage  feast  of  the  Lamb. 


1874.]  THE  TESTIMONY   OF  ORGANIC   LIFE.  93 

None  of  these  things  can  have  been  a  surprise  to  the  infinite 
foresight ;  nor  can  we  divest  ourselves  of  the  belief  that  these 
effects  were  intended  when  man  was  made  omnivorous  in 
diet.  The  natural  state  of  man  is  not  yet  att lined  ;  it  con- 
sists in  a  perfected  civilization,  when  all  men  shall  be  truly 
helpers  of  each  man  in  attaining  the  best  ends  for  himself, 
and  doing  the  best  service  to  all. 

As  free  will  has  abused  the  appetites,  and  brought  in 
drunkenness  and  gluttony,  so  it  has  abused  other  passions, 
and  brought  in  still  deeper  degradation  and  misery.  But 
the  divine  wisdom  and  holiness  is  vindicated  by  the  innu- 
merable blessings  bestowed  upon  our  race  through  the  almost 
unconquerable  strength  of  that  love  which  binds  man  and 
woman  in  one.  The  sanctities  and  joys  of  human  life,  lifting 
us  above  the  brutes,  and  exalting  us  into  communion  with 
the  heavenly  spirits,  cluster  around  the  sacred  family  altar. 
The  holiest  affections  of  our  nature  are  called  out  by  the 
family  relation  ;  they  owe  even  the  opportunity  of  existence 
to  the  primal  and  strongest  bond  which  holds  together  the  two 
heads  of  the  family,  and  makes  them  one  ;  thus  is  created  a 
home  with  its  sanctifying  influences.  For  the  protection  of 
homes,  civil  governments  are  established ;  and  all  the  inesti- 
mable blessings  depending  on  civil  law,  are  thus  called  into 
being,  primarily  by  the  instincts  which  lead  to  marriage. 
Aristotle  compared  the  political  instincts  of  man  to  those  of 
the  bee.  Yet  how  different  is  the  hive  from  a  city.  The 
hive  is  but  one  enlarged  family ;  the  city  is  an  association  of 
families  ;  in  the  hive  there  are  but  three  varieties  of  individ- 
uals, in  the  city  there  are  a  thousand. 

The  laws  which  govern  the  hive  arc  worthy  of  study,  and 
repay  the  labor  of  investigation ;  the  laws  which  govern  the 
state  arc  still  more  complex  (we  speak,  of  course,  of  natural 
laws,  not  of  legislative  enactments),  and  arc  equally  evident 
manifestations  of  the  forethought,  wisdom,  and  beneficence 
of  the  Creator.  Some  investigators  have  confounded  the 
results  of  human  error  and  human  sin  with  the  operations 
of  natural  law,  and  have  thus  given  expositions  of  political 


94  THE  TESTIMONY   OF   ORGANIC   LIFE.  [Oct. 

economy  which  make  it  the  science  of  despair.  But  those 
who  have  taken  larger  surveys  of  human  history  show  us  that 
all  the  numerous  instinctive  tastes  and  likings  and  abilities 
of  men  are  exquisitely  adapted  to  the  production  of  a  multi- 
form harmony,  a  unity  out  of  diversity,  which  ever  moves 
forward  toward  better  and  grander  results.  The  normal 
tendency  of  human  society  is  toward  the  accumulation  of 
greater  wealth,  and  toward  a  more  equal  distribution  of  wealth 
among  men.  This  tendency  is  thwarted  or  fostered  by  men 
according  to  their  wisdom  or  their  folly.  The  proper  course 
of  agriculture  leads  to  increasing  fertility  and  abundance  — 
when  lands  wear  out,  and  crops  decrease,  there  has  been 
legislative  interference,  somewhere,  to  cross  the  natural 
course  of  events.  Thus  also,  under  wise  legislation,  guarding 
against  injustice,  but  laying  no  restrictions  on  transfers  of 
real  estate,  on  choice  of  employments,  or  on  other  commerce 
between  men,  wealth  of  all  other  kinds  increases,  subdivides 
itself  more  and  more  equally,  and  civilization  and  human  hap- 
piness increase.  Under  the  clear  light  poured  by  Carey  upon 
political  economy  it  becomes  the  science  of  hope  and  faith. 

One  more  source  of  natural  religious  knowledge  remains 
unmentioned,  and  we  have  reserved  it  to  the  last,  because  it 
connects  itself  so  readily  with  the  consideration  of  the  value 
of  revealed  religion.  The  testimony  of  our  fellow-men  is 
continually  a  source  of  knowledge,  and  rules  or  criteria,  for 
estimating  the  value  of  testimony  are  as  important  as  rules 
for  testing  the  results  of  observation  and  the  deductions  of 
logic.  The  testimony  may  be  concerning  observations  of 
what  has  been  seen,  heard,  touched  ;  or  it  may  bo  concerning 
belief,  feeling,  disbelief,  and  the  grounds  thereof.  And  Ave 
ground  our  estimate  of  the  value  of  their  testimony,  not 
simply  on  our  confidence  in  their  truthfulness,  but  also  on 
our  confidence  in  their  soundness  of  sense  and  of  judgment, 
and  on  their  opportunities  for  observation  and  for  knoAvledge. 
The  authority  of  witnesses  is,  thus,  carefully  estimated  ;  and 
may  range,  in  its  value,  from  absolute  worthlcssncss,  to 
absolute  certainty. 


1874.]  THE  TESTIMONY    OF  ORGANIC  LIFE.  95 

Nor  is  any  sphere  of  human  thought  exempt  from  the 
authority  of  testimony.  Even  in  the  lowest  spheres,  in 
which  it  has  been  often  said  that  authority  is  not  recognised 
at  all ;  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  true  that  without  constant  and 
complete  trust  in  the  authority  of  testimony,  none  of  the 
mathematical  and  physical  triumphs  of  modern  science  had 
been  possible.  The  greatest  masters  of  the  sciences  of  space 
and  time  continually  build  their  most  sublime  deductions 
partly  upon  confidence  in  the  results  of  inferior  men,  partly 
on  the  theorems  of  their  fellow  masters.  It  is  so  also  in 
physics,  and  in  the  historical  sciences.  In  the  psychological 
and  theological  departments  the  value  of  testimony  may  be 
less,  but  it  does  not  become  zero.  There  is  no  break  in  {lie 
grand  hierarchy  of  sciences ;  the  higher  departments  are 
simply  less  fully  developed  than  the  lower. 

A  child  accepts  his  parent's  authority  in  moral  and  religious 
matters;  it  is  reasonable  that  he  should  do  so.  He  may  in 
after  years  become  wiser  than  his  parents,  and  his  children 
will  accept  in  turn  his  authority.  And  he  will,  in  his  own 
higher  wisdom,  see  that  the  general  consent  of  wise  and 
judicious  persons  to  an  opinion  creates  a  presumption  in 
favor  of  that  opinion.  Man  is,  in  all  countries  and  tribes,  a 
religious  being;  which  is  a  very  strong  presumptive  proof 
that  man  sees  some  real  truths  in  religion.  This  insight  in 
religion  may  also  be  justly  presumed  to  be,  in  some  degree, 
proportionate  to  the  religious  character  of  the  individual. 
The  agreement  in  religious  doctrines  among  the  holiest  and 
most  saintly  men  in  all  denominations  of  Christendom,  and 
even  in  Mohammedan  and  heathen  lands,  is  much  gr< 
than  a  careless  observer  might  suppose.  Men  of  rcli 
character,  even  among  pagans,  have  held  monotheistic  v. 
have  believed  in  the  wisdom,  beneficence,  and  holiness  of  God, 
in  his  providence  over  individuals,  in  his  answer  to  prayer, 
in  his  displeasure  at  sin,  in  the  forgiveness  of  the  penitent, 
in  the  inspiration  of  our  holiest  and  best  thoughts,  in  human 
immortality,  in  future  retribution,  in  the  obligations  of  piety 
and  charity.     These  glorious  doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith 


96  THE  TESTIMONY   OF   ORGANIC  LIFE.  [Oct. 

have  been  held  in  all  ages  by  saintly  men,  even  among 
pagans ;  and  this  concurrent  testimony  certainly  creates  a 
presumption  in  favor  of  their  truth,  and  throws  the  burden 
of  proof  upon  those  who  would  deny  them. 

In  all  ages  of  the  world  there  have  appeared  persons  who 
claim  a  peculiar  knowledge  of  spiritual  things  from  their 
intercourse  with  the  dead ;  the  dead  being  assumed  to  have 
greater  opportunities  for  knowledge  than  we.  The  fact  that 
this  belief  in  the  intercourse  of  the  dead  with  the  living,  by 
means  of  chosen  mediums,  has  been  common  in  all  ages, 
creates  at  first  a  presumption  in  favor  of  its  truth.  But  on 
the  other  hand,  the  most  religious  persons  have  not  accepted 
it,  or  have  been  dissatisfied  with  it.  Moses  forbade  it ;  the 
Christian  church  repudiated  it.  Its  perpetual  presence  is 
due  to  the  inextinguishable  faith  of  man  in  human  im- 
mortality, and  to  the  inappeasable  longing  of  the  heart  for 
communion  with  the  beloved  dead,  to  the  insatiable  curiosity 
of  men  concerning  the  future,  and  the  unseen,  and  to  the 
perpetual  recurrence  of  phenomena  above  our  power  to  ex- 
plain. Its  perpetual  failure  to  command  general  assent  and 
respect  from  the  best  men,  arises  partly  from  the  unsatis- 
factory nature  of  the  tests  by  which  the  fact  of  intercourse 
with  the  spirits  of  the  departed  is  sought  to  be  established ; 
.  but  chiefly  from  the  total  want  of  correspondence  between 
the  supposed  testimony  of  the  dead  and  our  own  best  and 
purest  ideas  of  the  spiritual  world.  The  wide  prevalence,  in 
all  ages,  of  faith  in  some  intercourse  with  the  dead  is  a  very 
strong  argument  to  show  that  such  intercourse  is  possible ; 
but  the  utter  failure  of  ancient  or  modern  necromancy  to 
obtain  responses  worthy  the  higher  light  into  which  we  trust 
the  saints  have  ascended,  leads  us  to  suppose  that  if  they  are 
permitted  to  have  intercourse  with  the  living  it  is  by  the  way 
of  inspiration  and  providential  guidance,  —  by  influences 
which  the  recipients  cannot  distinguish  from  the  workings 
of  their  own  minds,  nor  from  the  influences  of  the  Spirit 
of  God. 

But  the  pseudo-science  of  this  century  cries  out  against 


1874.]  THE  TESTIMONY   OF  ORGANIC  LIFE.  97 

any  faith  in  spiritual  influences,  either  from  departed  friends, 
or  from  angels,  or  from  God  ;  declaring  that  all  thought  and 
feeling  move  by  invariable  laws  of  the  association  cf  ideas ; 
and  that  free  will  both  in  man  and  in  spiritual  beings  is  thus 
rigidly  excluded.  But  such  an  invariability  of  psychologic 
law  is  a  mere  assumption,  not  warranted  by  anything  in  the 
nature  or  necessity  of  science,  and  absolutely  forbidden  by 
consciousness,  and  by  the  truths  implied  in  the  moral  judg- 
ments of  conscience.  The  doctrines  of  necessity,  of  whatever 
school,  are  fallacious  inferences  from  the  infinite,  and  cer- 
tainly can  have  no  force  in  the  present  case.  The  spiritual 
influences  of  angels  and  spirits  could  just  as  readily  be  in 
accordance  with  law  as  the  influences  which  we  are  con- 
stantly receiving,  unconsciously,  from  parents,  teachers,  and 
friends.  If  arguments  from  the  infinite  nature  of  God,  and  the 
invariable  character  of  law,  were  permissible  at  all,  we  should 
certainly  draw  very  different  conclusions ;  we  should  argue 
that  to  infinite  wisdom  and  infinite  power,  the  inflexible  and 
invariable  is  perfectly  plastic,  and  leads  to  any  result  desired 
by  the  all-loving  God.  Is  not  the  Almighty  as  free  in  his 
treatment  of  us,  as  we  in  the  treatment  of  our  children  ? 

But  the  very  nature  of  the  organized  bodies  in  wliich  we 
dwell,  disproves  this  assumption  of  invariable  law,  and  demon- 
strates that  the  house  is  open  to  receive  angels'  visits.  When 
we  can  conceive  it  possible  that  any  inventive  skill  ever  could 
make  a  machine, which  (to  expand  Diderot's  comparison)  should 
be  constantly  forming  letters,  and  arranging  them,  without 
intervention  or  guidance,  into  all  the  great  books  successively 
that  have  adorned  sacred  and  profane  literature,  science, 
history,  law,  poetry,  and  the  drama,  from  the  beginning  to 
the  present ;  then  we  may  attempt  the  more  difficult  concep- 
tion that  any  general  laws  whatever  can  have  produced  the 
myriads  of  specific  forms  in  plants  and  animals  ;  each  show- 
ing the  guidance  of  thought  as  distinctly  as  any  work  of  human 
art,  and  all  bound  together  by  intellectual  connections  and 
harmonies  into  one  divine  literature  of  Nature.  In  every 
organic  form,  and  in  the  highest  of  them,  the  human  body, 

Vol.  XXXI.  No.  124.  77 


98  THE  TESTIMONY  OF  ORGANIC  LIFE.  [Oct, 

there  is  evidence  of  a  constant  spiritual  guidance  of  the 
molecular  forces  to  bring  about  a  specific  organic  result. 
Whatever  he  the  nature  of  that  guidance,  whether  the  will  of 
God,  or  the  unconscious  action  of  the  Infinite  Spirit,  or  the 
unconscious  action  of  our  own  spirits,  it  is  certainly  not  the 
action  of  the  molecular  forces  alone ;  there  is  a  guidance  of 
those  forces  to  make  them  build  and  repair  an  individual 
and  unique  form ;  the  guidance  cannot  by  any  strength  of 
imagination  be  referred  to  the  forces  themselves ;  yet  it  is 
not  in  opposition  to  or  violation  of  their  laws  ;  nor  inconsis- 
tent with  the  supposition  of  spiritual  laws  governing  our  con- 
scious life.  This  guidance  of  molecular  forces  to  the  building 
up  of  a  body  peculiar  to  the  individual,  proves  that  spirit  is 
ruling  within  us,  without  our  conscious  recognition  of  its 
presence  ;  proves,  therefore,  that  the  doctrine  of  inspiration 
by  higher  spirits,  and  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  manifesting 
itself,  and  known  only  by  its  fruits  of  purity  and  love,  is  not 
inconsistent  with  the  truths  of  physiology  or  of  psychology. 

By  the  very  hypothesis  of  such  inspiration,  it  is  assumed 
to  be  undistinguishable  from  the  action  of  the  laws  of  asso- 
ciation, and  from  the  promptings  of  genius.  Genius  is  inborn 
ability,  inherited  from  ancestors,  and  supposed  to  be  modified 
by  ancestral  culture.  But  when  a  man  of  poetic  genius,  sud- 
denly, without  conscious  effort  or  premeditation,  utters  a  new 
poem,  that  unlocks  a  thousand  hearts,  or  the  mathematician, 
in  like  manner,  when  thinking  of  something  foreign  to  his 
science,  is  startled  by  a  flash  of  heavenly  light,  revealing  a 
new  geometrical  truth,  putting  the  keys  of  nature's  secret 
treasure-houses  into  men's  hands;  or  a  humble  Christian 
struggling  under  temptations  to  sin,  under  doubts  and  fears, 
dreading  lest  all  shall  indeed  end  in  eternal  silence,  frost, 
and  darkness,  suddenly  feels  his  heart  thaw  as  under  a  divine 
sun,  beholds  the  mists  roll  away,  and  a  world  of  transcendent 
spiritual  beauty  reveal  to  him  his  own  destiny  as  a  child  of 
the  all-loving  God,  and  his  soul  swells  and  thrills  with  the 
sense  of  that  glorious  liberty  ;  when  men  are  thus  lifted  in  a 
moment  far  above  the  level  of  their  ordinary  experience,  it 


1874.]  THE  TESTIMONY  OF  ORGANIC  LIFE  99 

is,  and  may  forever  be,  impossible  for  them  to  decide  to  which 
of  three  causes  to  attribute  the  hoppy  change ;  to  a  physio- 
logic action  on  the  brain  giving  it  unwonted  freedom  in 
response  to  the  spirit ;  to  unwonted  energy  in  their  spiritual 
action  compelling  the  brain  to  unusually  prompt  obedience ; 
or  to  some  inspiration  from  unseen  spirits,  and  perchance 
from  higher  sources,  from  the  ascended  Saviour,  or  from  the 
Almighty.  There  is  nothing  in  the  truths  of  physiological  or 
of  psychological  science  that  renders  this  third  supposition 
untenable. 

The  light  of  nature  carries  us,  however,  but  little  beyond 
the  being  of  God  and  his  attributes.  Those  attributes  being 
infinite,  our  deductions  from  them  are  unsatisfactory.  From 
the  divine  justice,  for  example,  and  the  divine  holiness,  we 
may  argue  that  sin  is  by  nature  unpardonable,  and  deserves 
infinite  and  eternal  punishment.  Yet  from  the  same  a! tri- 
butes, looked  at  from  another  point  of  view,  it  has  been 
inferred  that  sin  must  lie  temporary  and  all  souls  finally 
restored  to  Eden.  Nothing  can  be  demonstrated  from  such 
premises  ;  we  are  left  to  hope  and  fear,  and  to  look  to  Reve- 
lation for  clearer  light. 

Thus  also  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit  cannot  be 
demonstrated  ;  it  can  simply  be  defended  from  the  objections 
of  pseudo-science,  and  shown  to  be  by  nature  probable.  Its 
probability  arises  from  the  fact  that  our  souls  arc  shown  by 
the  morphological  and  telcological  arguments  to  have  been 
made  in  the  likeness  of  God,  and  our  filial  and  paternal 
affections  are  to  be  trusted  as  some  indication  of  his  paternal 
character.  This  probability  is  strengthened  by  the  craving 
which  the  religious  mind  has  for  personal  intercourse  with 
God  ;  a  desire  which  is  universal  among  the  best  minds,  and 
a  desire  proportioned  to  their  holiness  of  character. 

But  whether  the  higher  light,  awakening  the  soul  to  a 
renewed  consciousness  of  its  divine  origin  and  kindred  conic 
from  genius  or  from  inspiration,  it  gives  to  its  recipient  a 
certain  measure  of  authority  as  a  witness  to  religious  truth. 
Men  arc  frequently  competent  to  understand  and  to  test  and 


100  TIIE  TESTIMONY   OF   ORGANIC   LIFE.  [Oct, 

prove  truths  which  were  far  above  their  power  of  original 
discovery.  An  algebraic  formula  may  be  put  to  the  test  of 
numerical  substitution  by  one  whose  knowledge  of  algebra  is 
wholly  insufficient  to  discover  the  formula ;  in  like  manner, 
men  may  recognize  the  beauty  and  holiness  of  the  best  utter- 
ances of  saints  and  prophets,  without  being  able,  unaided, 
to  say,  or  even  to  think,  things  so  good.  They  recognize 
the  holy  and  divine  character  of  the  prophecy  by  the  echo  it 
awakens  in  their  hearts,  and  by  its  evident  justness  to  their 
experience. 

There  is  also  an  important  sense  in  which  a  man  may  be  an 
authority  to  himself,  appealing  from  Philip  drunk  to  Philip 
sober.  The  mathematician  may  forget  the  steps  by  which  he 
formerly  demonstrated  his  theorem ;  ho  may  through  tem- 
porary indisposition  be  unable  to  retrace  the  steps ;  and  yet 
he  continues  to  believe  it  on  his  own  authority.  I  have 
known  also  several  persons  who  when  in  health  had  a  cheer- 
ful faith  in  God  and  in  Christ,  but  who  when  unwell  became 
sceptical.  But  three  of  them  had  the  reasonableness  to  say, 
"  the  sick  man  ought  to  defer  to  the  judgment  of  a  man  in 
health ;  what  I  see  in  my  highest  state  of  health,  I  will  not 
doubt  because  I  fail  to  see  it  when  my  sight  is  blurred  and 
dim  and  heavy." 

We  have  spoken  of  the  presumption  in  favor  of  believing 
the  united  testimony  of  good  men  in  all  communions,  in  all 
ages  of  the  church,  and  we  might  add  that  the  agreement  of 
the  saints  of  all  times  and  all  countries,  even  in  pagan  lands, 
in  believing  many  of  the  great  doctrines  of  monotheism, 
creates  also  a  presumption  that  the  guidance  of  the  Spirit  of 
truth  has  not  been  wanting.  But  even  in  cases  in  which  the 
multitude  of  the  saints  has  not  spoken,  even  on  points  of 
rarer  interest,  or  of  deeper  and  more  peculiar  experience, 
the  voice  of  a  man  of  holy  character  is  entitled  to  weight ;  it 
creates  a  presumption  in  favor  of  the  truth  of  what  he  says, 
strong  in  proportion  to  his  holiness,  and  to  the  glow  of 
divine  love  within  him.  The  saying  that  love  is  luminous  is 
attributed   to    Swcdenborg ;    it  embodies  a  pregnant  truth, 


1874.]  THE  TESTIMONY  OF  ORGANIC  LIFE.  101 

acknowledged,  in  some  form,  by  wise  and  holy  men  both 
before  and  since  the  Apostle  John,  who  says,  "  He  that 
dwelleth  in  love,  dwelleth  in  God,  and  knoweth  God." 

While  the  law  is  undoubtedly  true  that  feeling  and  percep- 
tion, as  states  of  consciousness,  have  some  tendency  to  exclude 
each  other,  and  that  a  man  may  therefore  be  blinded  by  his 
feelings ;  it  is  also  true  that  these  states  always  to  some 
extent  co-exist,  and  neither  can  remain  in  the  total  absence 
of  the  other.  There  is  no  clear  vision  without  attention, 
and  no  attention  until  interest  be  aroused ;  and  there  is  no 
living  interest  in  the  spiritually  beautiful,  the  holy,  without 
adoration.  No  man  who  is  cold  to  the  issues  of  the  late  civil 
war,  and  without  sympathy  in  the  trials  and  sufferings  of 
ordinary  life,  can  give  a  just  judgment  of  the  statuettes  of 
Rogers.  No  man  without  interest  in  dogs  and  other  animals 
can  justly  estimate  Landseer.  No  man  who  is  unmoved  by 
music  is  a  competent  judge  of  Rubinstein  or  of  Wagner. 
And  of  what  value  is  a  criticism  upon  the  labors  of  Agassiz 
or  Bache  or  Peirce  from  a  man  who  is  without  enthusiasm  for 
any  of  the  mathematical  or  physical  sciences. 

It  is  evident  that  while  enthusiasm  may  mislead,  and  too 
great  a  depth  of  feeling  blind  the  judgment,  it  is  even  more 
emphatically  true  that  coldness  must  lead  to  injustice ;  and 
that  aversion  or  dislike  to  a  subject  will  prevent  the  forma- 
tion of  correct  opinions  concerning  it.  Over- zeal  leads  to 
extravagance  of  opinion ;  coldness  is  deadness  and  consequent 
blindness ;  while  the  highest  healthy  enthusiasm  gives  the 
clearest  sight.  If  then  human  testimony  has  any  weight 
with  us,  we  should  give,  other  things  being  equal,  the  greatest 
weight  to  the  testimony  and  opinion  of  those  interested  in 
the  question,  and  moderately  enthusiastic  upon  it. 

If  now  we  apply  these  self-evident  remarks  to  the  question 
of  theology,  we  shall  see  that  it  is  only  those  interested  in 
religion  who  are  likely  to  form  a  sound  judgment  on  relig- 
ious matters.  It  is  perfectly  reasonable  to  ask  those  who 
are  not  devoutly  inclined  to  give  at  least  great  weight  to 
religious  opinions  upon  which  the  majority  of  more  devout 


102  THE  TESTIMONY   OF   ORGANIC  LIFE.  [Oct. 

men  agree.  If,  for  any  cause,  I  am  inclined  to  doubt  the 
being  of  God,  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  and  the  forgiveness  of  sin,  and  to  sink  into  acquiescence 
with  the  notion  that  man  perishes  with  death,  then  I  ought 
to  remember  that  those  whose  lives  have  given  the  best  proof 
of  a  religious  nature,  and  who  have  been  most  thoroughly 
and  practically  interested  in  such  questions,  have,  with  great 
unanimity,  proclaimed  these  doctrines,  which  I  am  doubting, 
to  lie  the  most  certain  of  all  truths. 

In  the  hours  of  deepest  need,  when  our  holiest  longings 
are  awakened,  God  is  not  an  unknown  and  unknowable  mys- 
tery, but  a  Father ;  of  unsearchable  wisdom,  of  boundless 
love,  of  unspeakable  tenderness ;  he  is  the  only  judge  who 
can  decide  what  suffering  and  disappointment,  what  agony 
and  bloody  sweat  may  be  necessary  for  us  in  this  life,  to  fit 
us  for  the  unutterable  joys  prepared  in  the  world  to  come, 
for  those  who  love  and  trust  him.  The  fact  that  in  our  hour 
of  deepest  emotion  and  of  most  thorough  awakening  we  cling 
to  these  common  tenets  of  holy  men,  gives  to  those  tenets  a 
new  and  strong  probability. 

We  were  recently  reading  to  a  friend  the  report  of  a  scene 
in  the  National  Academy  of  Sciences.  The  Superintendent 
of  the  Coast  Survey  had  poured  out  with  great  earnestness  a 
chapter  in  his  "  Linear  Associative  Algebra,"  which  he 
deemed  of  the  highest  importance ;  but  it  was  necessarily 
clothed  in  language  perfectly  unintelligible  to  a  majority  of 
his  hearers.  When  he  had  closed,  and  all  were  sitting  in 
silent  bewilderment,  Agassiz  arose  and  said,  in  substance, 
"  I  must  confess  that  I  have  not  understood  one  word  of  this 
communication,  but  I  have  heretofore  had  such  ample  reasons 
for  believing  in  the  speaker's  clearness  and  soundness  of 
thought,  that  I  accept  what  he  has  now  said  as  undoubtedly 
true,  and  unquestionably  to  become  of  great  practical  value." 
When  I  had  finished  reading  the  anecdote,  my  friend  sur- 
prised me  by  saying,  with  decisive  clearness :  That  is  pre- 
cisely my  position  with  regard  to  Jesus  Christ ;  Jesus  assures 
me  of  the  paternal  character  of  God,  and  of  the  immortality 


1874.]        THE  DIVINE  AND  HUMAN  IN  JESUS   CHRIST.  103 

of  the  individual  soul ;  how  ho  gets  his  knowledge,  I  do  not 
know  ;  I  cannot  see  those  truths  clearly  written  on  the  world, 
nor  on  the  soul ;  without  Christ  I  could  only  hope  they  were 
true  ;  but  I  have  seen,  and  do  see,  so  many  proofs  of  the  won- 
derful wisdom  and  clearness  of  thought  and  holiness  of 
character  in  Jesus  Christ,  that  when  he  says  that  he  knows 
they  are  true,  I  believe  that  he  does  know ;  thcorizcrs  may 
debate  as  they  will  concerning  the  character  and  degree  of 
his  inspiration,  in  what  manner  or  sense  he  was  an  incarna- 
tion of  God,  it  is  enough  for  me  that  the  whole  record  of  the 
New  Testament  gives  me  perfect  faith  in  his  wisdom,  his 
holiness,  and  his  truth  ;  so  that  when  he  says  that  he  knows 
God  is  our  Father,  I  know  that  he  knows  it,  and  therefore  I 
know  it.  Nor  was  my  friend  unwise,  much  less  unreasonable, 
in  thus  accepting,  upon  the  authority  of  competent  testimony, 
truths  consonant  with  the  intuitions  of  his  soul,  but  beyond 
the  reach  of  his  faculties  to  attain. 


THE 


BIBLIOTHEOA    SACRA. 


ARTICLE    I. 
THE  NATURAL   SOURCES   OF   THEOLOGY. 

BY    REV.  THOMAS    HILL,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  FORMERLY    PRESIDENT    OF    HARVARD 

COLLEGE. 

We  propose  to  recapitulate,  in  the  present  Article,  the 
sources  of  religious  knowledge  which,  in  our  four  preceding 
Articles,  we  have  found  trustworthy ;  and  in  order  that  the 
reader  may  carry  away  a  positive  impression  of  faith,  rather 
than  of  controversy,  doubt,  and  denial,  we  will,  for  the  most 
part,  omit  in  this  recapitulation  any  allusion  to  the  modern 
forms  of  unbelief,  which  in  the  previous  Articles  we  have 
endeavored  to  show  stand  on  wholly  untenable  foundations, 
drawing  nearly  all  their  conclusions  from  premises  which 
attempt  to  define  the  infinite.  Falsely  accusing  Christian 
theology  of  this  logical  absurdity,  the  opponents  of  faith  in  the 
Christian  scriptures  rush  themselves  headlong  into  the  error 
which  they  condemn;  arguing  from  the  infinite,  while  ac- 
knowledging that  we  can  safely  argue  only  to  it.  We  have 
in  the  preceding  Articles  shown  this  fundamental  vice  in  the 
logic  of  unbelief,  and  will  endeavor  to  avoid  either  alluding  to 
it,  or  carelessly  falling  into  it,  in  the  present  recapitulation. 

The  grand  fundamental  truth,  on  which  all  human  philoso- 
phy and  all  human  science  must  be  built,  is  that  man  has  the 
power  of  perceiving  things  and  their  relations;  perceiving 
them  either  by  outward  sense,  or  by  inward  apprehension 

Vol.  XXXH.  No.  125.  — January,  1875.  1 


106  THE   NATURAL   SOURCES   OF   THEOLOGY.  [Jan. 

For  this  power  of  perception  we  may  use  the  term  sight ;  we 
may  say  that  we  see  whatever  is  perceived  by  the  bodily 
senses,  the  eye,  the  ear,  touch,  smell,  taste  ;  we  see  the 
external  world  and  its  sensible  properties  by  outward  sense  ; 
and  we  may  say  that  we  see  by  inward  sight  that  which  is  part 
of  our  own  consciousness,  or  that  which  is  abstract  and  known 
only  by  reflection,  or  conceived  by  the  imagination. 

AVe  come  into  conscious  being  possessed  of  these  powers  of 
outward  and  inward  sight.  In  our  first  survey  of  the  universe 
we  see  the  difference  between  our  own  self  and  the  rest  of  the 
universe  ;  and  the  first  grand  division  in  our  classifying  the 
objects  of  perceptions,  is  into  the  me  and  the  not-me ;  myself 
and  nature.  Very  early  in  our  conscious  life  we  again  divide 
the  not-me  into  my  body  and  not  my  .body.  My  body  is 
subservient,  in  part,  directly  to  my  thought  and  wish ;  what 
is  not  my  body  is  in  no  case  directly  obedient.  It  obe}rs  only 
on  compulsion  applied  in  some  manner  through  my  body.  A 
further  step  is  taken  very  early  :  we  discover  the  existence  of 
other  selfs  in  the  world,  each  with  its  appropriate  body,  obedi- 
ent to  it,  by  which  it  obtains,  as  we  do,  a  power  of  compelling 
a  partial  obedience  of  matter  to  its  will.  We  thus  learn  the 
existence  of  our  fellow-men,  dwellers  in  organic  forms,  and 
partial  lords  of  the  material  world.  We  see  that  the  material 
world  is  more  like  the  human  body  than  like  the  soul.  Nay, 
before  adult  age,  we  class  the  body  in  with  matter,  and  make 
the  primary  division  to  be  into  matter  and  spirit.  We  recog- 
nize tlie  fact  that  spirit  is,  to  a  great  extent,  lord  over  matter  ; 
and  we  learn  that  the  most  careful  experiments  demonstrate 
matter  to  be  wholly  inert.  Yet  we  sec  matter  in  motion  when 
no  human  spirit  is  acting  upon  it:  the  very  stars  of  heaven 
arc  in  motion.  We  rise  at  once  to  the  conception  of  a  mighty 
spirit,  ruling  the  world  as  we  rule  the  small  portions  of  it 
under  our  control ;  and  reason  pushes  us  to  the  conclusion 
that  there  is  no  limit  to  his  power —  that  he  is  not  only  mighty, 
but  Almighty. 

Thus  readily  is  the  human  intellect  led  to  perceive  the 
existence  of  Almighty  God,  and  the  likeness  to  him  in  which 


1875.]  THE  NATURAL   SOURCES   OF  THEOLOGY.  107 

man  is  created.  But  the  notion  thus  obtained  is  very  meagre  ; 
it  presents  the  Deity  only  as  the  Almighty,  and  does  not 
satisfy  the  longings  of  the  heart  after  God.  While  man  is  in 
a  rude  and  savage  state,  and  his  better  affections  are  largely 
dormant;  while  the  bodily  appetites  and  passions,  together 
with  the  lust  for  power  and  the  greed  for  wealth,  fill  constant ly 
the  sphere  of  his  consciousness,  he  does  not  feel  the  need  of 
any  better  idea  of  God  than  this  rude  symbol  of  a  chieftain  or 
king  mightier  than  any  earthly  ruler. 

But  in  the  progress  of  higher  culture,  and  especially  in  (he 
culture  of  our  Christian  civilization,  as  it  has  been  affected  for 
centuries  by  the  sublime  teaching  and  humanizing  influences 
of  the  gospel,  men  begin  to  desire  some  better  knowledge  of 
their  Creator,  and  a  longing  for  communion  with  him  arises. 
They  look  eagerly  in  every  direction  for  further  light  concern- 
ing his  being  and  character.  They  would  fain  test  and 
legitimate  to  themselves,  if  possible,  the  sweet  words  concern- 
ing God  which  they  find  attributed  to  Jesus,  and  to  those 
who  follow  the  light  of  that  morning  Star,  that  Sun  of  Right- 
eousness. In  this  search  for  trustworthy  natural  sources  of 
theological  knowledge  they  look  within  ;  they  study  their  own 
intellectual  and  moral  powers,  and  the  control  of  the  will ;  in 
each  department  of  their  inner  life  they  find  some  rays  of  this 
light  for  which  they  are  longing. 

The  intellect,  beginning  with  the  consideration  of  that 
which  is  plainly  known  and  thoroughly  understood,  can  go 
but  a  few  steps  in  any  direction  without  finding  itself  con- 
fronted by  an  absolutely  impenetrable  wall  of  mystery.  It 
recognizes  the  existence  of  spirit,  yet  finds  that  it  knows 
spirit  only  by  means  of  a  few  phenomena,  the  laws  of  which 
are  but  partially  comprehended.  There  are  indications  that 
our  own  souls  and  minds  arc  reservoirs  of  hidden,  . 
even  of  unknown,  and  perhaps  even  of  unsuspected,  pov. 
There  arc  clear  proofs  that  the  soul  within  us  undergoes  many 
modifications,  and  accomplishes  many  effects  which  arc  not 
brought  to  the  light  of  consciousness  at  all.  Yet  these  hidden 
depths  of  our  being,  bringing  up  at  length  their  effects  to  the 


108  THE   NATURAL   SOURCES   OF   THEOLOGY.  [Jan. 

surface,  show  those  effects  to  be  reasonable,  exactly  as  though 
our  reason  and  understanding  had  worked  within  us  much 
deeper  than  we  knew.  But  we  cannot  ascribe  the  guidance 
of  the  motion  in  these  abysses  of  our  nature  to  our  own 
wisdom;  we  find,  therefore,  in  the  rational  results  of  the 
movement,  evidence  of  a  divine  power  within  us,  controlling 
to  some  extent,  by  laws  hidden  from  our  sight,  the  inmost 
springs  and  currents  of  our  being. 

Moreover,  we  find  the  intellect  striving  incessantly  after 
the  infinite ;  pushing  its  inquiries  into  the  past  and  coming 
eternities,  inward  to  the  centre  of  the  atom,  outward  beyond 
the  physical  universe.  The  intellect  refuses  to  find  any  here 
or  now.  Here  has  no  limits  ;  it  is  anywhere,  it  is  everywhere, 
and  its  limits  are  nowhere.  Now  has  no  duration  ;  all  time  is 
past  or  future,  and  the  past  and  the  future  have  no  limits, 
save  as  they  limit  each  other  by  crowding  against  each  other 
in  the  non-existent  now.  The  intellect,  thus  refusing  to  be 
limited  in  thought,  cannot  believe  itself  limited  in  duration  ; 
it  asserts  its  independence  of  time  ;  its  dwelling-place,  whence 
it  thus  surveys  the  cycles  of  time,  is  in  eternity ;  it  asserts  its 
own  immortal  and  divine  nature  ;  yet  it  is  humbled  in  the 
consciousness  of  its  ignorance,  and  even  with  the  vaguest 
recognition  of  the  presence  of  thought  in  the  universe,  per- 
ceives that  that  thought  infinitely  transcends  in  wisdom  all 
human  powers.  Thus  the  first  survey  of  the  intellectual 
powers  discloses  new  testimony  to  the  attributes  of  the  Deity — 
He  is  allwise  as  well  as  Almighty. 

Searching  then  the  affections,  we  find  them  betraying  the 
like  infinite  nature.  The  very  passions  and  appetites  of  the 
body  rage  within  us  like  stormy  seas,  and  sometimes  seem  en- 
tirely too  vast  for  the  little  frame  in  which  they  are  implanted. 
But  a  closer  examination  shows  this  to  be  an  illusion  ;  we  are 
blending  spiritual  powers  with  carnal  affections,  are  deceiving 
ourselves,  in  attributing  to  the  flesh,  powers  that  come  from 
the  soul.  Not  so  when  we  pass  into  the  higher  region  of  the 
affections  —  the  love  of  truth,  the  love  of  beauty,  the  love  of 
friends,   charity  towards   men,  reverence  for  men  who  are 


1875.]  THE  NATURAL   SOURCES   OF  THEOLOGY.  109 

great  and  good,  gratitude  toward  our  benefactors,  or  toward 
benefactors  of  the  race.  In  these  higher  affections,  which 
bind  us  to  our  fellow-men,  we  find  no  limits  necessarily  affixed. 
All  the  highest  genius  of  our  race  has  been  exhausted  in  the 
vain  endeavor  to  express  the  highest  sentiments  of  our  nature ; 
and  while  we  gratefully  receive  these  attempts  at  the  hands 
of  the  poet,  the  orator,  the  sculptor,  the  painter,  the  composer, 
and  even  bow  with  reverence  before  the  genius  that  has 
expressed  so  much,  we,  nevertheless,  all  feel  that  within  our 
hearts  are  glowing  deeper  things  than  any  that  have  been 
uttered.  We  could  not  rival  the  man  of  genius  in  his  utter- 
ance ;  but  were  his  friends,  instead  of  praising  his  manner  of 
expressing  himself,  to  praise  his  depth  of  feeling,  we  should 
instantly  feel  offended,  and  cry  with  Hamlet  to  the  boasting 
Laertes : 

"  I  too, 
I  loved  Ophelia,  forty  thousand  brothers 
Could  not make  up  my  sum." 

Nor  forty  thousand  men  of  genius  express  all  my  feeling. 
No  sculpture,  no  painting,  no  oratory,  no  poetry,  not  even 
any  music,  ever  expressed  all  the  depth  of  feeling  in  the 
human  heart.  Not  even  any  music,  do  I  say?  not  even  the 
sacrifice  of  all  personal  hopes  and  happiness  in  the  endurance 
of  poverty,  toil,  suffering,  and  agonizing  death,  has  expressed 
the  whole  depth  of  love  in  the  hearts  of  many  of  those  who 
have  gladly  endured  all  things  for  the  sake  of  wife  or  husband, 
parent  or  child,  or  for  country,  or  for  humankind. 

This  heart,  so  strong  in  love  toward  others,  has  also  an 
inextinguishable  desire  for  love  in  return ;  it  rejoices  in  the 
approval  of  good  men,  it  is  glad  with  the  sympathy  of  its 
beloved  ;  but  it  also  looks  trustingly  up  and  longs  for  forgive- 
ness and  blessing  iron*  God.  All  its  great  tides,  bearing  up  our 
hopes  and  joys  and  sorrows,  flooding  every  inlet  of  our  being, 
and  daily  renewing  our  whole  life  with  their  motions,  are 
perpetual  witnesses  to  the  existence  of  the  great  centre  of 
attraction,  the  Author  and  Inspirer  of  all  forces.  The  love  of 
God  is  the  only  fountain  copious  enough  to  supply  such  a  sea. 


110  THE  NATURAL   SOURCES   OF   THEOLOGY.  [Jan. 

The  intellect,  surveying  these  wondrous  manifestations  of 
the  human  heart,  sees  at  once  that  it  is  absurd  to  ascribe  such 
effects  to  any  petty  mechanical  causes  in  the  organization  of 
the  human  body,  and  that  the  only  rational  conclusion  is  to 
refer  them  to  a  Being  whose  unfathomable  love  is  commen- 
surable only  with  his  almighty  power  and  his  boundless 
wisdom. 

But  this  survey  of  the  internal  world  of  consciousness, 
leading  us  from  our  recognition  of  the  will  to  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  Almighty,  and  then  from  the  nature  of  the  intellect 
and  the  heart  leading  us,  justly  and  with  certainty,  to  ascribe 
wisdom  and  love  to  him,  begins  now  to  reveal  to  us  features 
of  the  world  within,  and  call  our  attention  to  points  in  the 
world  without,  which  both  confirm  our  first  inductions  and 
open  to  us  new  consequences  and  new  aspects  of  the  truth 
already  attained. 

We  have  seen  that  we  are  not  alone  in  the  universe,  that 
there  are  other  men  around  us,  that  there  may  be  other 
conscious  beings  than  men,  and  that  certainly  there  is  one 
Being  above  all,  in  whose  likeness,  to  some  extent,  we  have 
been  formed  ;  since  he  manifests  power  and  wisdom  and  love 
unlimited,  as  we  manifest  them  faintly  and  feebly.  In  the 
contemplation  of  this  spiritual  universe,  this  goodly  company 
of  men  and  angels,  made  in  the  image  of  God,  we  perceive 
that  certain  relations  exist,  and  must  exist,  between  them ; 
that  they  have  been  made  with  reference  to  each  other ;  and 
that  out  of  this  order  of  relation  to  each  other  and  to  their 
Maker,  springs  an  obligation,  a  code  of  duty,  binding  us  to 
certain  courses  of  action,  feeling,  and  thought;  forbidding 
others.  We  thus  perceive  that  there  is  a  difference  out-rank- 
ing in  importance  all  those  which  we  have  previously  con- 
sidered ;  it  is  the  difference  between  right  and  wrong.  We 
demand  of  ourselves  conformity  to  the  right,  we  condemn 
ourselves  if  we  choose  the  wrong.  We  carry  this  judgment 
of  ourselves  into  our  most  secret  thoughts  and  most  private 
hours.  We  are  ashamed  of  ourselves,  and  condemn  ourselves 
for  cherishing  unworthy  thoughts,  even  in  solitude ;  feeling 


1875,]      THE  NATURAL  SOURCES  OF  THEOLOGY.        Ill 

that  even  for  such  secret  sins  we  deserve,  and  shall  receive, 
punishment.  From  whom?  We  push  this  question,  and  find 
that  the  voice  of  conscience  must  be  considered  the  voice  of 
God  within  us  ;  it  is  his  witness  set  in  our  hearts  to  remind 
us  constantly  of  his  perpetual  knowledge  of  us,  and  the  eternal 
justice  of  his  dealing  with  us.  The  Being  who  created  all 
things,  whose  existence  and  power  are  necessary  as  the  first 
cause  of  all,  whose  wisdom  is  the  only  explanation  of  the 
myriad  harmonies  of  the  universe,  and  whose  inspiration  is 
the  only  source  of  holy  affections ;  this  God  of  wisdom,  power, 
and  love,  must  also  have  been  the  ordainerof  those  rela 
between  spiritual  beings,  which  first  revealed  to  us  the 
difference  between  right  and  wrong.  God  ordained  those 
relations,  gifted  us  with  power  to  see  them,  with  the  moral 
sense  that  feels  obligation,  and  reverences  holiness ;  he  must 
himself  be  all  holy,  and  strict  to  mark  iniquity. 

Our  powers  are  his  gift,  we  can,  therefore,  neither  see  nor 
imagine  aught  greater  than  he.     Stimulate  our  powers  to  the 
utmost,  they  cannot  rise  above  the  Being  that  made  them, 
and  as  we  can  readily  form  the  idea  of  perfection,  that  is  of  a 
being  to  whom  no  new  excellence  could  be  added,  and  in 
whom  no  existing  excellence  be  increased,  God,  our  Maker, 
must  be  perfect  in  holiness  and  in  every  attribute.     11 
therefore,  just,  merciful,  true,  and  faithful.     Nor  can    our 
faith  in  these  perfections  of  the  Deity  be  readily  shaken,  they 
are  held,  explicitly  or  implicitly,  by  all  men  of  sound  mind  as 
the  very  basis  of  all  our  daily  thought  and  action.     We  once 
heard  one  of  the  leading  mathematicians  of  the  world  declare 
that  our  only  conception  of  the  stability  of  nature  was  i 
unconsciously  perhaps,  in  our  faith  in  the  divine  vera 
"  How  do  I  know,"  said  he,  "  that  the  sun  will  rise  to-]  i 
I  know  it  as  I  know  the  invariablencss  of  other  natural 
because  I  know  that  God  is  true.     My  conviction  of 
fulness  of  God  is  the  basis  on  which  I  build  my  confiden 
the  permanence  of  the  physical  laws.     God  has  ma 
world  a  schoolhouse  for  man,  and  man's  education  could  not 
be  well  carried  on  if  there  were  fluctuations  in  the  order  of 
nature." 


112  THE  NATURAL   SOURCES   OF  THEOLOGY.  [Jan 

In  our  survey  within  the  soul,  we  discover  that  we  have 
the  power  of  seeing  time  and  space.  Their  existence  is 
implied  in  the  first  phenomenon  of  matter,  that  is,  in  motion ; 
and,  indeed,  since  both  space  and  time  are  without  bounds  or 
parts  or  sensible  properties,  we  should  not  have  seen  them  but 
for  motion,  which  calls  our  attention  to  them,  and  reveals  to 
us  our  power  of  dividing  both  space  and  time  into  parts  at 
our  own  will  by  a  mental  act,  and  considering  the  relations 
of  those  parts  to  each  other.  Then  we  discover  that  these 
intangible  entities,  having  no  power  either  of  spirit  or  of 
matter,  are  so  perfectly  within  the  grasp  of  our  intellect,  that 
we  can  make  symbols,  or  verbal  propositions,  denning  per 
fectly  certain  of  these  relations,  and  from  these  definitions, 
answering  perfectly  to  the  reality  in  space,  we  deduce 
necessary  consequences.  Thus  space  becomes  the  subject- 
matter  of  geometry,  and  time  of  algebra,  while  the  abstract 
relation  of  number  furnishes  arithmetic,  the  earliest  branches 
of  knowledge  which  attained  a  mathematical  condition  ;  using 
here  the  word  mathematical  in  the  sense  given  to  it  in  Peirce's 
Linear  Associative  Algebra.  Out  of  these  was  evolved  a 
science  of  quantity  and  a  science  of  quality,  mathematically 
treated ;  that  is,  using  perfect  definitions,  and  thus  drawing 
necessary  conclusions.  All  these  mathematical  sciences  of 
space,  time,  quantity,  and  quality  are  founded  upon  the 
direct  sight  of  space  and  time  —  the  sight  of  space  and  time, 
not  in  the  world  of  matter,  nor  in  the  sphere  of  consciousness, 
but  enfolding  matter  and  finite  consciousness,  the  conscious 
succession  of  thought  calling  our  attention  to  the  existence 
of  time,  and  the  motion  of  matter  calling  our  attention  to  the 
existence  of  space ;  but  space  and  time  being  themselves 
independent  of  matter  and  of  our  finite  spirits. 

Yet  the  conclusions  mathematically  reached,  concerning 
space  and  time,  may,  in  one  sense,  be  called  a  priori  truths ; 
they  rest  upon  a  division  of  space  and  time  by  our  power  of 
thought ;  and  not,  to  any  great  extent,  upon  the  nature  of 
space  and  time  in  themselves.  In  themselves,  and  undivided 
by  thought,   these   elements  are   so  devoid  of    interesting 


1875.]  THE  NATURAL  SOURCES   OF  THEOLOGY.  113 

properties  that  they  give  us  few  ideas.  The  conceptions  of 
geometry  and  algebra,  and  of  the  various  forms  of  the  calculus 
can  therefore  be  justly  considered  pure  creations  of  the  human 
intellect.  The  points  in  the  circumference  of  a  circle  are 
distinguished  from  points  within  and  points  without  the  circle 
only  by  an  intellectual  act,  fixing  them  at  an  intellectually 
appointed  distance  from  an  intellectually  established  centre. 
Thus  with  the  points  constituting  any  other  geometric  locus, 
or  the  instants  constituting  a  pure  algebraic  equation.  Yet 
some  of  these  pure  intellectual  creations  of  the  human  mind 
have  been  found  embodied  in  every  atom  of  matter  and  in 
every  combination  thereof ;  many  others  are  found  embodied 
in  special  parts  of  the  material  world ;  some  of  them  being  of 
a  high  and  difficult  order.  Furthermore,  in  very  many  parts 
of  this  physical  creation  we  find  ideas  embodied,  which, 
although  not  among  those  actually  reached  by  the  a  priori 
road,  are  of  the  closest  similarity  to  them;  and  in  all  parts  of 
the  universe  we  see  manifest  indications  that  ideas  are  there 
which  may  at  some  future  day  be  grasped  by  human  minds. 
The  whole  encyclopedia  of  the  physical  sciences  is,  indeed, 
only  a  statement,  in  human  language,  of  the  ideas  which  have 
already  been  discovered  embodied  in  the  physical  universe. 
The  whole  army  of  scientific  investigators  are,  whether  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  pursuing  no  other  end  than  the 
attempt  to  unfold  ideas  expressed  in  the  material  universe, 
and  not  yet  read  by  man. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  this  recurrence  in  nature  of  our 
a  priori  thought  ?  There  can  be  but  one  conclusion,  that 
the  Maker  of  the  world  made  the  soul  in  his  own  image,  and 
aave  us  some  feeble  power  of  seeing  space  and  time,  quantity 
and  quality,  as  he  sees  them  ;  that  our  geometry  is  all  included 
in  his  perfect  knowledge  of  space. 

But  it  is  not  the  physical  sciences  alone  that  bear  this 
glorious  testimony  to  our  divine  kindred.  The  domain  of 
science  is  extending  beyond  physics  into  political  economy 
and  government,  education  and  psychology;  and  the  aim  of 
science  is  everywhere  the  same  ;  she  first  seeks  facts,  then  to 

Vol.  XXXII.  No.  125.  2 


114  THE  NATURAL   SOURCES   OF  THEOLOGY.  [Jan. 

understand  thern,  finally  to  be  able  to  draw  necessary  conclu- 
sions ;  she  proceeds  on  the  assumption  that  everything  is  intel- 
ligible, that  everything  is  governed  by  some  law  which  may  be. 
comprehended.  But  what  is  this  assumption  which  everj 
scientific  student  must  make,  and  without  which  no  science 
were  possible,  what  is  this  assumption  that  everything  can  be 
comprehended,  but  an  assumption  that  everything  was  com- 
prehended before  it  was  made  ?  Space  and  time  and  matter 
are  as  inert  and  powerless  intellectually  as  physically,  and  the 
intelligible  order  of  the  creation  could  have  sprung  only  from 
spirit,  that  is,  from  a  Being  to  whom  spirit  is  more  akin  than 
matter  or  space  or  time  can  be. 

Science  is  the  unfolding  of  the  harmonies  of  creation,  a 
reverent  pointing  out  of  the* wisdom  and-  self-consistence  of 
the  creative  thoughts  of  God.  The  whole  universe  is,  to 
science,  a  combination  and  expression  of  philosophical  ideas  ; 
these  ideas  include  many  of  those  which  were  once  supposed 
to  be  their  own  pure  creations  ;  they  include  also  many  which 
will  probably  be  discovered  by  the  a  priori  road  before  they 
are  perceived  in  the  world.  Indeed,  Whewell,  one  of  the 
ablest  of  English  writers  on  the  philosophy  of  science,  main- 
tains, in  a  book  of  great  learning,  that  this  is  always  the 
actual  process  in  the  discovery  of  a  natural  law ;  namely, 
that  the  facts  never  give  the  law,  but  only  suggest  it,  some- 
times very  dimly,  so  that  the  mind  really  invents  it  as 
hypothesis  and  then  verifies  it  by  comparison  with  facts. 

But  the  world  is  not  only  an  expression  of  thought,  it  is 
an  accomplishment  of  purposes  ;  it  is  an  extensive  system  of 
means  and  ends.  Certainly  in  organized  beings,  and,  we 
think,  in  inorganic  nature  also,  we  find  effects  taking  place, 
"  not  as  the  necessary  consequences  of  what  went  before,  but 
as  the  necessary  conditions  of  what  is  to  come  after,  thus 
demonstrating  foresight,  and  therefore  mind  —  a  plan,  and  a 
mind  working  according  to  it."  The  heavenly  bodies  ac- 
complish changes  on  the  earth,  absolutely  necessary  for  the 
vegetable  and  animal  life  upon  our  planet ;  in  imparting  heat 
and  light,  electric  and  actinic  forces,  and  distributing  them 


1875.]  THE  NATURAL  SOUKCES  OF  THEOLOGY.  115 

aright ;  in  providing  also  for  those  movements  in  the  ocean, 
and  in  the  atmosphere,  which  produce  the  changes  of  the 
weather,  the  alternate  sunshine  and  rain,  so  necessary  for 
every  form  of  terrestrial  life.  The  parts  of  the  earth  itself 
are  adapted  to  the  same  ends ;  the  proportion  of  land  and 
water,  and  of  the  various  elements  ;  the  elevation  and  slope 
of  the  continents,  the  quantity  of  the  atmosphere  ;  these,  and 
other  adaptations,  fit  the  earth  precisely  for  the  home  of  its 
living  tribes.  And  not  merely  for  animal  life,  —  the  nature 
and  proportion  of  the  elements  fit  the  planet  to  be  the  abode 
of  civilized  and  intellectual  men ;  all  is  arranged  in  such  a 
manner  that  this  earth  becomes  a  home,  a  workshop,  a  play- 
ground, a  schoolroom,  a  temple,  for  the  human  race.  Then, 
in  the  smaller  field  of  organic  structure,  for  the  support  of 
which  all  nature  is  adapted,  we  find  the  plants  and  animals 
subserve  each  others  needs,  the  machinery  for  the  continuance 
of  each  species  after  its  kind  is  perfect,  the  parts  of  each 
individual  make  a  harmonious  whole  ;  each  part  is  a  perfect 
means  for  accomplishing  certain  ends.  Most  marvellous 
among  these  ends  is  the  conveyance,  in  the  animal,  of  sensa- 
tion to  a  conscious  spirit ;  accomplished  by  the  marvellous 
organs  of  the  senses,  among  which  the  eye  and  the  car 
are  complicated  with  many  nice  adjustments  of  parts  to  a 
common  end. 

Nor  do  we  see  how  any  sound  logic  can  avoid  the  conclusion 
that  these  innumerable  adaptations  of  means  to  ends  were 
adaptations  for  those  ends  ;  that  although  it  is  impossible  for 
us  to  reconcile  the  infinity  of  God  with  the  conception  of 
working  in  detail,  of  planning  separate  adaptations ;  yet  the 
force  of  the  facts  is  irresistible,  and  we  must  suppose  the 
infinite  God  foresaw  and  predetermined  these  ends  to  be 
accomplished  by  these  means. 

Furthermore,  we  recognize,  in  general,  an  adaptation  of 
the  spiritual  gift  in  each  animal  to  its  organization.  The 
animals  who  are  especially  fond  of  flics,  for  example,  are 
those  which  have  especially  good  means  for  catching  them ; 
the  swallow  his  swiftness,  and   the   bristly  corners   of   his 


116  THE  NATURAL   SOURCES   OF  THEOLOGY.  [Jan. 

mouth  ;  the  bat  similar  means  ;  the  tortoise  his  flexible  neck 
and  the  ability  to  move  it  with  a  sudden  jerk ;  the  toad  his 
darting  tongue  ;  the  dragon-fly  his  ability  to  back,  rise,  fall, 
or  go  sideways,  instantly,  while  in  flight ;  the  spider  his  web  ; 
the  ploiaria  his  sharp  wrist-spurs  and  talons.  Thus  through- 
out the  whole  animal  kingdom ;  thus  in  all  the  variety  of 
national  and  individual  character  in  man,  in  general,  each 
one  finds  pleasure  in  success ;  likes  to  do  what  he  can  do 
well,  and  can  do  well  that  which  he  likes  to  do.  This  grand 
truth,  illustrating  both  the  wisdom  and  the  loving-kindness 
of  the  Creator,  is  made  only  the  more  strikingly  true  by  the 
occasional  instances  in  which,  in  individual  cases,  the  adap- 
tation is  not  as  perfect  as  usual. 

Th  3  universe  is  the  embodiment  of  ideas,  and  the  adaptation 
of  a  system  of  means  to  ends ;  one  of  those  ends  is  the 
furnishing  to  us  men  an  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  our 
higher  powers.  Among  our  powers  of  perception  we  find 
special  senses,  giving  us  special  reports  concerning  the  world 
of  matter  and  motion.  The  eye  reports  to  us  not  only  those 
motions  which  we  recognize  at  once  as  motions ;  but  also 
motions  which,  for  many  centuries,  we  called  colors,  without 
knowing  that  they  are  motions.  Thus  also  the  ear  reports  to 
us  motions,  which  we  called  sounds,  without  knowing  that 
they  were  merely  modes  of  motion,  although  we  knew  that 
they  were  accompanied  by  motion.  The  general  nerves  dis- 
tributed over  the  body  reported  to  us  still  other  vibrations 
which  we  called  heat,  and  failed  to  recognize  their  character 
as  movements.  We  cannot  dispense  with  these  names  of 
light  and  color,  heat,  electricity,  chemical  action,  and  sound. 
These  various  modes  of  motion,  although  all  motions,  are 
various ;  each  produces  its  specific  effect  not  only  upon  our 
senses  or  feelings  but  upon  sundry  inanimate  objects.  The 
simple  arithmetical  idea  of  the  ratio  of  four  to  five,  combined 
with  the  idea  of  two  series  of  equidistant  pulses  in  the  air, 
produces  no  effect  upon  us  as  mere  ideas.  We  could  not  fore- 
see on  any  a  priori  ground  what  the  effect  should  be.  But 
express  these  ideas  not  in  words,  but  by  actually  making  two 


1875.]  THE  NATURAL   SOURCES   OF  THEOLOGY.  117 

series  of  pulses,  their  absolute  frequency  being  within  the 
limits  say  of  fifty  and  five  thousand  to  a  second,  and  the 
relative  frequency  in  the  ratio  of  four  to  five,  and  we  at  once 
obtain  a  peculiar  effect  upon  the  ear,  a  musical  concord  ;  an 
effect  which  cannot  be  represented  to  the  mind  as  an  arith- 
metical ratio  nor  as  a  mechanical  pulsation ;  which  cannot  be 
imagined  until  heard,  nor  imagined  other  than  as  it  was 
heard.  In  this  chord  of  the  major  third  we  distinguish  three 
kinds  of  beauty :  first  the  beauty  of  tone,  arising  from  the 
equidistance  of  the  pulses ;  second,  the  beauty  of  the  quality 
of  tone  arising  from  the  form  of  the  pulsations  ;  thirdly,  the 
beauty  of  the  harmony,  arising  from  the  relative  frequency 
of  the  pulsations  in  the  two  series.  In  exceedingly  simple 
cases  of  beauty  men  have  been  able  to  discover  part  of  the 
causes  of  beauty ;  as  in  the  present  case,  that  it  arises 
from  the  expressions  in  the  elastic  tremors  of  the  air  of 
simple  arithmetical  and  geometrical  ideas  not  recognized  by 
the  ear  as  such,  but  only  recognized  as  purity  of  tone,  coloring, 
and  concord.  In  more  complicated  cases  of  musical  expres- 
sion, where  melody  and  progression  of  chords  join  in  producing 
the  effect,  we  are  wholly  without  a  clue  to  the  meaning  of 
the  beauty  or  the  cause  of  the  expression.  Yet  we  cannot 
esteem  it  accidental.  The  language  of  tone ;  the  pathetic 
effect  of  one  modulation,  the  joyous  expression  of  another ; 
the  inspiriting  power  of  martial  strains,  the  touching  em- 
phasis of  a  song  of  the  affections ;  these  are  acknowledged 
and  felt  by  men  of  every  nation ;  nay,  even  the  animals  are 
to  some  extent  under  their  influence.  No  sound  philosophy 
can  put  such  facts  aside  as  of  no  meaning.  There  is  evi- 
dence here  that  the  Creator  of  man  knew  how  to  produce 
the  highest  effects  by  the  simplest  means  ;  in  simple  arith- 
metical ratios  of  vibration  he  has  foreordained  a  means  of 
pouring  out  all  the  varying  depths  of  passion  and  sentiment 
from  the  thoughtless  carelessness  of  our  adopted  national 
air,  to  the  hellish  fury  of  passages  in  Cherubini's  Medea, 
or  to  the  rapture  of  the  ransomed  worlds  in  Beethoven's 
Mount  of  Olives. 


118  THE  NATURAL   SOURCES   OF   THEOLOGY.  [Jan. 

The  same  argument  may  be  drawn  from  other  forms  of 
beauty,  and  other  modes  of  expressing  passion  by  means  of 
art,,  as  by  form  and  color.  They  also  are  primarily  simple 
forms  of  expressing  geometrical  and  algebraic  ideas,  symmetry 
in  space  and  time.  But  these  ideas  are  not  always  recognized 
by  us  as  such ;  they  are  deciphered  into  an  intellectually 
intelligible  form  only  in  the  simplest  cases ;  in  higher  cases 
we  feel  the  beauty,  but  do  not  recognize  the  law  by  which  it 
is  produced.  And  in  all  these  cases  man  is  not  only  capable 
of  feeling  the  beauty,  he  is  gifted  with  a  subordinate  power 
of  reproducing  it ;  first  by  copying  the  forms  in  which  it  is 
expressed  by  nature,  and  afterward  by  the  creation  of  similar 
forms,  guided  by  the  spirit  or  feeling  inspired  by  nature,  but 
without  an  intellectual  perception  of  her  law.  In  the  case  of 
music,  this  production  of  new  forms  is  carried  to  a  point  of 
perfection  incomparably  higher  than  that  of  the  natural  model ; 
so  that  it  is  difficult  to  find  in  nature  the  original  suggestions 
which  have  led  to  the  sonata,  the  symphony,  and  the  oratorio. 
This  artistic  genius  which  creates  the  statue,  the  picture,  the 
overture,  is  in  some  senses  a  higher  power  than  that  of  the 
intellect ;  it  is  in  every  sense  a  spiritual,  exalted  work,  and 
commands  reverence  and-  affection  toward  the  artist. 

Now  the  universe  is  not  only  a  combination  of  ideas  and 
of  means  to  ends,  it  is  a  work  of  art ;  and  that  of  the  highest 
order.  Musical  expression  is  by  no  means  wanting  in  it ;  the 
winds  and  the  waves,  the  cries  of  animals,  the  song  of  birds, 
all  have  their  powerful  musical  expression.  But  in  beauty 
and  expressiveness  of  form  and  coloring  the  natural  world 
far  exceeds  the  best  efforts  of  the  painter  and  the  sculptor. 
A  glance  of  the  living  eye  lighted  by  a  living  soul  within, 
when  that  soul  is  filled  with  deep  and  earnest  emotion,  makes 
even  the  eyes  of  the  wonderful  child  at  Dresden  dull.  One 
October  afternoon  throwing  its  golden  light  over  our  New 
England  hills  surpasses  all  the  possibilities  of  mere  pigment 
under  the  hands  of  the  highest  conceivable  genius.  We 
cannot  believe  that  these  exquisite  effects  of  the  face  of  man 
and  of  the  face  of  nature  were  not  foreseen  by  the  Creative 


1875.]  THE  NATURAL  SOURCES   OF  THEOLOGY.  119 

Mind.  The  perpetual  presence  of  beauty  in  all  the  forms  and 
coloring  of  natural  objects  and  of  the  human  face,  most  beau- 
tiful of  all,  bears  perpetual  testimony  to  a  wise  and  loving 
God  ;  it  calls  upon  us  not  only  for  reverence,  but  for  gratitude 
and  love  toward  him. 

There  are  artists  also  in  another  sphere,  who  create  ideal 
character,  and  hold  in  the  drama,  or  the  tale,  the  mirror  up 
to  human  nature.  The  highest  admiration  is  accorded  to  one 
who  creates  new  personages,  and  by  his  life-like  descriptions 
of  them,  or  of  their  words  and  actions,  makes  them  realities 
to  us.  The  evidences  of  his  skill  arc  found  in  the  unity  of 
each  character  introduced  into  his  work,  in  the  excellence 
and  the  variety  of  these  characters,  and  in  the  harmony  with 
which  the  action  of  each  contributes  to  one  final  result. 
But  in  all  these  respects  human  society  and  human  history 
form  together  an  artistic  work  of  the  highest  character  ;  and 
the  long  course  of  ages  exhibiting  its  innumerable  individuals, 
many  of  wonderful  excellence,  and  its  numberless  by-plots 
leading  to  separate  issues  of  great  interest,  is  still  evidently 
ever  tending  toward  some  higher  and  higher  final  accomplish- 
ment worthy  of  the  long  delay,  and  to  the  production  of 
which  each  of  the  various  parts  has  been  adapted.  Herein, 
therefore,  are  marks  of  the  creative  wisdom,  peculiar  and 
altogether  different  from  those  to  which  we  have  heretofore 
alluded. 

It  is,  however,  vain  to  endeavor  to  condense  into  a  single 
brief  Article  an  enumeration  of  the  varieties  of  argument, 
each  capable  of  large  expansion  and  illustration,  by  which 
this  main  doctrine  of  natural  theology  is  established.  That 
man  is  made  in  the  image  of  his  Creator,  and  may  justly 
argue  from  his  own  thought  and  feeling,  care  being  taken  to 
argue  soundly  and  justly,  to  the  attributes  and  purposes  of 
God  ;  this  is  a  conclusion  reached  by  many  lines  of  induction, 
of  which  we  have  alluded  to  but  a  few,  and  against  which  we 
can  find  no  solid  or  valid  argument ;  no  argument  which  is 
not  rendered  worthless  by  the  admission  of  infinity  into  the 
premises  in  an  inadmissible  manner.     When  from  this  con- 


120  THE  NATURAL   SOURCES   OF   THEOLOGY.  [Jan 

elusion,  or  from  the  purposes  and  attributes  which  we  are,  in 
conformity  with  it,  led  to  assign  to  God,  we  attempt  to  draw 
inferences,  then  we  must  beware  lest  we  also  err  in  reasoning 
from  the  attributes  of  an  infinite  being.  We  must  ever  re- 
member the  distinct  warning  given  us  by  the  earliest  of 
Christian  philosophers,  who,  a  full  thousand  years  ago,  warned 
us  that  the  first  and  only  thing  that  can  be  known  of  God,  is 
that  he  cannot  be  known,  and  that  "  Deus  ipse  nescit  se, 
quid  est,  quia  non  est  quid."  We  can  say  that  he  is  wisdom 
and  power  and  love  only  because  all  these  dwell  in  him  as 
their  cause  and  essence ;  but  all  our  conceptions  of  these 
attributes  are  but  as  nothing  in  respect  to  the  infinite  fulness 
of  their  being  in  him.  In  other  words,  the  induction  which 
correctly  leads  us  to  assign  but  one  cause  for  the  universe, 
and  in  that  cause  to  place  infinite  perfections,  and  among 
them  perfect  wisdom,  holiness,  justice,  and  love,  does  not 
enable  us  to  decide  in  all  cases  what  those  infinite  attributes 
imply.  They  do  imply  that  no  action  of  God,  no  course  of 
events  in  the  universe,  can,  in  the  long-run,  work  injustice, 
or  do  a  real  injury  to  the  children  of  God  ;  but  this  conclusion 
is  drawn  from  the  nature  of  the  attributes,  not  from  their 
infinity.  We  may  be  certain  that  God  can  and  will  hear  and 
answer  prayer,  and  make  all  things  work  together  for  good 
to  them  who  love  and  trust  him,  and  accept  his  mercy  offered 
in  Christ  our  Lord.  We  may  be  certain  also  that  he  will  not 
leave  wickedness  unpunished,  but  will  render  to  every  man 
the  just  deserts  of  his  sin.  Reason  goes  so  far  with  un- 
wavering step.  But  shall  we  argue  from  his  infinite  love 
that  he  must  bring  every  creature  finally  to  eternal  happiness ; 
or  from  his  infinite  justice  that  he  must  assign  the  incor- 
rigibly wicked  to  eternal  and  infinite  torment,  we  should  be 
arguing  from  the  infinite,  and  our  argument  would  not  be 
sound.  The  question  of  eternal  punishment,  or  of  future 
universal  restoration,  can  be  settled  only  by  revelation,  if 
settled  at  all. 

The  light  of  nature  is  in  many  respects  clear,  and  leads  to 
very  valuable  conclusions ;  and  we  may  devoutly  thank  God 


1875.]  THE  NATURAL   SOURCES  OF  THEOLOGY.  121 

that  it  is  so.  But  we  are  the  children  of  the  Infinite  One, 
and  we  have  within  us  illimitable  desires;  the  clearer  the 
light  we  have,  the  more  we  watch  for  the  breaking  of  the 
perfect  day.  These  inductions  concerning  our  likeness  to 
the  Creator,  and  the  inference  of  our  own  immortality  which 
immediately  flows  from  them,  makes  us  long  only  the  more 
earnestly  for  a  closer  communion  with  him;  for  a  more 
direct  spiritual  contact  with  him  dwelling  in  our  hearts.  We 
pray  that  he  would  guide  our  thoughts,  purify  our  affections, 
awaken  in  us  holier  desires,  inspire  with  new  strength  our 
feeble  and  corrupted  will.  Abundant  reasons  are  given  us 
for  believing  that  these  prayers  are  acceptable,  and  when 
offered  in  earnest  sincerity  are  accepted,  and  bring  holier 
influences  into  the  suppliant's  heart.  And  yet  he  is  ever 
longing  for  more  light,  and  trusting  that,  after  the  night  of 
death,  a  morning  shall  come  refulgent  with  more  heavenly 
glory. 

The  Christian  saints  furthermore  believe,  and  we  devoutly 
believe  with  them,  that  this  great  light  which  is  to  break  upon 
us  when  the  shadows  of  death  flee,  has  already  dawned  and 
spread  its  reviving  light  from  over  the  hills  of  Galilee.  They 
find  in  the  person  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  a  light  clearer  than 
the  noonday  sun,  and  revealing  to  us  more  truth  than  the 
light  of  nature  ever  could  reveal.  They  recognize  in  him  an 
image  of  God,  answering  far  more  perfectly  than  any  ideal 
being  whom  we  could  portray  to  our  best  conceptions  of 
perfection.  The  ineffable  tenderness  of  his  love  towards  men, 
the  gentleness  of  his  dealings  with  sinners,  give  men  a  confi- 
dence which  no  mere  words  could  give,  that  the  awful  sacrifice 
on  Calvary  was  indeed  for  the  many,  for  the  remission  of  their 
sins  ;  and  that  he  who  thus  suffered,  rose  again,  to  pour  do  vn 
upon  his  church  the  manifold  gifts  of  the  Spirit. 

It  has  not  pleased  him  to  make  further  revelations  of  truth 
concerning  God  than  was  necessary  for  the  salvation  of 
sinners,  —  and  upon  those  truths,  or  upon  nearly  all  we  had 
a  glimmering  light  before  Christ  came;  but  he  has  made 
the  important  truths  plain  and  certain  ;  such  truths  as  these 

Vol.  XXXII.  No.  125.  3 


122  THE  NATURAL   SOURCES   OF  THEOLOGY.  [Jail. 

— thai  God  is,  through  Christ,  reconciling  men  unto  himself, 
that  he  will  forgive  those  who  trust  in  Christ  for  forgiveness, 
and  turn  away  from  sin ;  that  he  will  inspire  such  with  a 
new  power  to  live  holy  and  useful  lives  ;  that  both  the  Father 
and  the  Son  dwell  in  the  heart  of  a  penitent  believer  and  fill 
him  with  the  Holy  Spirit  that  leads  to  victory  over  the  tempter, 
over  sin  and  death.  The  history  of  the  Christian  church 
abundantly  witnesses  the  truth  of  these  promises.  In  that 
church,  despite  its  manifold  corruptions,  failures,  and  sins, 
there  has  always  been  a  large  body  of  men  distinguished  for 
excellence  of  private  character  far  beyond  those  who  have 
been  alien  from  the  church.  With  this  excellence  of  character 
has  been  joined  clearness  and  strength  of  religious  faith.  And 
the  last  natural  source  of  theological  truth  which  we  shall 
mention  is  the  experience  of  saintly  men.  The  fact  that  in 
all  communions  of  the  Christian  world  we  find  the  holiest 
and  purest  men  substantially  agree  on  the  great  doctrines 
of  religion  and  morality,  and  that  the  best  and  clearest 
thinkers  of  other  great  religions  agree  in  the  same  essen- 
tial doctrines  of  central  Christianity,  is  in  itself  a  very  strong 
argument  in  support  of  those  doctrines ;  an  evidence  both  of 
the  truth  of  these  points  in  natural  religion  endorsed  by 
Christ,  and  of  the  value  of  his  endorsement. 


1875.]  THE  FIRST  CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS.  123 


ARTICLE    III. 
THE  FIRST   CHAPTER   OF   GENESIS. 

BY   REV.  THOMAS    HILL,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  FORMERLY    PRESIDENT    OF    HARVARD 

COLLEGE. 

It  has  been  observed  by  many  biblical  critics  during  tbc 
last  six  score  years,  that  the  Book  of  Genesis  was  not  written 
by  the  author  of  the  Pentateuch ;  but  rather  compiled  by  him 
as  an  introduction  to  his  own  writings.  Two  principal  docu- 
ments, or  sources,  seem  to  have  been  used  by  Moses  in  this 
compilation,  embracing  accounts  of  the  creation  and  fall,  the 
deluge,  the  dispersion  of  nations,  agreeing  in  a  striking  man- 
ner with  the  early  traditions  preserved  in  sundry  profane 
writers.  Those  disposed  to  regard  the  Book  of  Genesis  with 
reverence,  as  the  compilation  of  a  divinely  illuminated  man, 
look  upon  these  traditions  recorded  by  him  as  the  true  versions, 
giving  us  the  realities  ;  those  who  wish  to  disparage  the  Bible, 
assume  that  the  first  book  of  Moses  is  of  no  more  value  than 
any  of  the  traditions  of  the  Etrurians,  the  Chaldeans,  or  the 
earlier  Aryans.  The  latter  class  seize  upon  the  anthropomor- 
phitic  character  of  many  passages  in  Genesis  to  show,  as  they 
think,  that  the  writers  had  no  higher  conceptions  of  the  Deity 
than  those  held  by  any  of  the  pagans.  To  this  the  defenders 
of  Moses  reply,  that  we  must  consider  the  extreme  antiquity 
of  these  fragments,  that  they  far  antedate  Moses,  and  were 
addressed  originally  to  a  people  more  rude  and  uncultivated 
than  the  earliest  Hebrews.  Those  people  must  be  addressed 
in  their  own  language  and  in  their  own  style  of  speech,  else 
they  would  not  comprehend  the  lesson.  These  fragments  in 
Genesis  contain,  each,  a  lesson  well  worth  learning,  and 
which  can  be  conveyed  to  rude,  uncultivated  people,  even  at 
the  present  day,  in  no  paraphrase  so  well  and  so  forcibly  as 
in  the  biblical  form. 


124  THE  FIRST   CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS.  [April, 

This  general  line  of  defence  and  of  argument  will  not 
avail,  unless  it  be  directly  and  distinctly  applied  to  the  indivi- 
dual cases.  Let  us  take  up,  therefore,  the  first  of  those  two 
apparently  contradictory  accounts  of  the  creation  with  which 
the  book  opens,  and  see  if  we  can  discover  the  divine  lesson 
which  it  contains.  At  some  future  time  we  may  endeavor  to 
show  that  the  second  account  is  equally  wonderful,  —  that  it 
needs  only  a  generous  and  appreciative  interpretation  to  show 
that  it  was,  for  the  age  in  which  it  was  given,  the  best  possi- 
ble form  in  which  the  great  lessons  of  our  moral  freedom 
and  our  responsibility  to  God  could  possibly  have  been  given. 
But  at  present  we  will  confine  ourselves  to  the  consideration 
of  the  first  account,  which  includes  the  whole  of  the  first 
chapter,  and  ends  with  the  word  "  created  "  in  the  fourth 
verse  of  the  second  chapter  ;  and  endeavor  to  show  the  cor- 
rectness of  Professor  Benjamin  Peirce's  view,  that  this 
chapter  contains  in  itself,  just  as  it  stands  in  our  ordinary 
English  translation,  demonstrative  evidence,  first,  of  its 
extreme  antiquity,  secondly,  of  its  absolute  perfection  of 
thought  and  adaptation  to  man,  —  thus  proving  that  the 
original  author  was  divinely  illuminated,  as  well  as  Moses 
who  made  it,  in  preference  to  any  kindred  tradition,  the  intro- 
duction to  his  books  of  the  law. 

The  late  Professor  Agassiz  was  accustomed  to  deny  that 
he  ever  indulged  in  hypotheses.  He  thought  that  he  studied 
the  phenomena  to  be  considered  until  they  revealed  to  him 
their  own  meaning,  and  that,  until  this  revelation  was  made, 
he  held  his  mind  in  entire  suspense,  without  making  any 
tentative  hypotheses.  Most  men  will  think  that  Agassiz  must 
have  deceived  himself  in  this  matter  ;  and  that  the  truth  was, 
that  his  mind  was  so  clear  and  so  rapid  in  its  action,  as  to 
reject  the  untenable  hypotheses  as  soon  as  suggested,  thus 
allowing  them  no  time  to  impress  themselves  on  his  memory. 
To  us  it  seems  impossible  for  a  finite  mind  to  proceed  in 
any  other  way  in  the  interpretation  of  nature  or  of  litera- 
ture than  by  hypotheses  and  verification,  in  a  manner  analo- 
gous to  that  of  the  good  old  "  rule  of  false,"  so  unwisely 
discarded  from  modern  treatises  on  arithmetic. 


1875.]  THE  FIRST  CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS.  125 

We  will,  therefore,  proceed  in  this  manner  in  our  examina- 
tion of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis.  It  gives  us,  in  some 
sense,  a  cosmogony.  Shall  we  suppose  that  it  was  intended 
to  be  a  literal  narrative  of  events  ?  If  so,  then  the  second 
chapter  was  probably  written  with  the  same  view ;  yet  the 
two  chapters,  taken  as  narratives  of  events,  are  irreconcil- 
ably in  contradiction  to  each  other.  In  a  compilation  made 
by  the  chosen  lawgiver  it  is  not  probable  that  this  would 
occur.  Moreover,  as  a  literal  narrative  of  events,  its  pertinence 
as  an  introduction  to  the  Mosaic  law  is  not  very  apparent. 
Dr.  Palfrey's  hypothesis  that  everything  in  the  Book  of 
Genesis  is  inserted  because  of  some  valuable  bearing  upon  the 
religious  doctrines  or  the  moral  lessons  of  the  Mosaic  law, 
commends  itself  to  our  judgment  as  having  an  overwhelming 
probability  in  its  favor.  The  first  thing,  therefore,  to  be 
looked  for,  is  a  revelation  of  the  unity  and  omnipotence  of  God. 
Now  this  chapter  has,  above  its  narrative  of  events,  a  religious 
sublimity,  which  has  made  it  reverenced  wherever  read. 
Jews  and  Christians  have  alike  clung  to  it,  as  worthy  to  have 
come  from  inspiration  ;  heathen  critics  have  praised  it,  and 
atheists  have  been  reclaimed  by  it.  About  forty  years  ago,  a 
Chinese  boy,  in  one  of  the  suburbs  of  Canton,  threw  away  the 
idols  of  his  family,  became  an  atheist,  and  ran  away  to 
America.  In  the  city  of  New  York  he  supported  himself  as 
a  porter,  and  spent  his  Sundays  in  the  streets,  or  on  the 
shores  of  Hoboken.  Curiosity  led  him  one  day  to  look  into 
a  church,  and  he  was  astonished  to  find  no  idols  there.  He 
asked,  the  next  day,  an  explanation  of  his  employer,  who 
replied  by  simply  putting  a  Bible  into  his  hands.  The  first 
chapter  of  Genesis  converted  him ;  he  became  a  Christian, 
studied  and  was  educated,  and  returned  a  Christian  teacher 
to  China.  He  was  in  the  same  class  with  us,  in  1889,  and 
we  bear  joyous  testimony  to  his  good  sense,  ability,  and 
character  ;  and  to  the  genuineness,  so  far  as  men  could  ju 
of  the  conversion  wrought  in  him  by  this  first  chapter  in 
Genesis. 

This   account  of  the  creation  is  very  old.     The  Hebrew 

Vol.  XXXII.  No.  126.  39 


126  THE  FIRST  CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS.  [April. 

scholars  tell  us  that  the  language  in  it  contains  marked 
archaisms,  which  set  its  date  far  antecedent  to  the  age  of 
Solomon,  and  even  to  the  age  of  Moses.  But  without  recourse 
to  Hebraists,  the  English  translation  testifies  emphatically  to 
an  extremely  early  date.  For  this  is  an  account  of  the 
creation — a  speculation  on  the  cosmogony;  yet  it  contains  no 
philosophical  or  technical  forms  of  expression,  it  betrays 
nothing  of  the  style  of  a  school ;  it  must  have  been  one  of 
the  very  first  of  human  speculations  on  such  subjects.  The 
simplest  and  most  sublime  message  that  can  be  given  to 
man  is  to  announce  to  us  the  existence  of  God.  The  revela- 
tion of  his  being  is  a  necessary  prelude  to  the  promulgation 
of  his  law ;  just  as  the  promulgation  of  his  law  necessarily 
precedes  the  mission  of  a  Saviour,  authorized  to.  announce 
the  terms  and  arrange  the  means  of  forgiveness  for  sin.  Let 
us,  then,  make  the  hypothesis  that  this  is  the  message  of  the 
present  chapter ;  and,  in  order  to  put  the  hypothesis  to  the 
severest  test,  let  us  make  what  may  be  deemed  an  extreme 
and  extravagant  hypothesis, — let  us  suppose,  for  a  time,  that 
to  some  very  early  prophet,  like  Enoch,  the  seventh  from 
Adam,  the  injunction  was  given  to  proclaim  to  mankind  the 
doctrine  that  God  is  the  absolute  Creator  of  the  material 
universe  and  all  its  forces,  and  that  from  his  will  all  the 
tribes  of  animate  beings,  including  man,  sprang  to  life ;  let 
us  farther  suppose  that,  in  fitting  and  illuminating  the  prophet 
for  his  task,  the  whole  course  of  nature  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end  was  unveiled,  and  all  the  discoveries  and  inventions 
of  man,  and  the  speculations  of  philosophy,  clown  to  the 
present  day  were  shown  to  him.  Now  if  this  hypothesis  ex- 
plains all  the  facts  in  the  case,  and  if  there  is  no  fact  to  be 
found  inconsistent  with  it,  then  it  is  fair  to  infer  that  so 
much  of  the  hypothesis  as  may  be  found  necessary  to  explain 
the  facts  is  true ;  and  this  inference  will  be  greatly  strength- 
ened if  the  hypothesis  extends  farther,  and  explains  facts  not 
at  first  taken  into  view ;  also  if  the  imagination  in  vain  seeks 
any  other  explanation. 

In  the  first  place  the  prophet  would  naturally  seek  to  say 


1875.]  THE  FIRST  CHAPTER    OF  GENESIS.  127 

that  God  is  the  Creator  of  matter  and  its  forces.  But  in 
what  terms  can  he  do  this?  No  speculations  have  as  yet 
discussed  the  origin  of  matter ;  there  is  no  word  signifying  to 
create ;  the  arts  have  not  sufficiently  advanced  to  make  a 
distinction  between  material  and  product,  and  there  is  no 
word  for  matter ;  neither  have  the  sciences  reached  the  state 
in  which  the  forces  of  nature  were  named.  Of  course,  in 
addressing  men  the  language  of  men  must  be  used,  and  the 
prophet  having  no  words  by  which  to  express  his  ideas,  and 
being  forbidden  by  the  necessity  of  making  himself  intelligible 
from  coining  words,  must  use  periphrases.  He  endeavors  to 
declare  that  God  was  the  Creator  of  matter  by  saying  that 
God  shaped  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  and  the  earth  was 
waste  and  empty,  and  darkness  lay  over  its  abysses,  and  the 
breath  of  God  brooded  over  its  waters.  This  representation 
of  the  forming  of  a  formless  earth  is  the  nearest  approach  to 
a  declaration  of  the  creation  of  matter  that  the  language  of 
that  early  day  could  make.  Then,  in  order  to  declare  God 
to  be  the  author  of  all  the  forces  of  nature,  and  that  he  holds 
them  under  his  control,  what  resource  is  there  but  for  the 
prophet  to  select  the  most  striking  of  those  forces,  and  to 
say,  God  made  that,  and  thus  imply  that  he  made  all  the  rest, 
that  would  hereafter  be  discovered.  He  chooses  light,  the 
most  striking  and  wondrous  of  all  to  the  untutored  eye,  most 
wonderful  in  itself,  in  its  revelations  and  its  suggestions,  and 
declares,  God  said  light  be,  and  light  was.  The  emphasis 
throughout  the  whole  chapter  is  upon  the  divine  name  ;  the 
proposition  to  be  conveyed  being  not  so  much  that  God  said, 
as  that  it  was  God  who  said  —  a  distinction  which  the  rude 
language  could  not  make.  All  things  sprang  from  his  fore- 
knowledge and  his  will, — this  is  the  prophet's  meaning  ;  it  is 
only  the  poverty  of  the  uncultivated  language  of  the  time 
which  forces  him  to  express  himself  in  this  way.  God  saw 
that  the  light  was  good;  that  is,  he  predestined  it  for  its 
multiform  uses  in  the  economy  of  vegetative  and  animal  life, 
and  in  the  development  of  the  human  intellect.  And  it  was 
he  who  separated  the  light  from  the  darkness ;  he  retained 


128  THE  FIRST   CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS.  [April, 

the  control  of  the  force  which  he  had  created,  and  appointed 
of  his  foreknowledge  the  alternations  of  day  and  night.  In 
like  manner  with  all  the  forces  of  nature  afterward  to  be 
discovered  in  scientific  research,  —  heat,  electricity,  galvanic 
currents,  chemical  affinities,  actinic  rays,  whatever  they  were, 
—  they  came  at  God's  command,  they  were  foreseen  by  him 
as  good,  and  designed  for  their  uses,  and  they  are  retained 
in  his  power  of  guidance.  How  could  the  prophet  say  this 
to  the  rude  people  of  his  early  time  better  than  in  those  sub- 
lime words  selected  from  their  unpolished  language,  to  shine, 
nevertheless,  as  undimmed  brilliants  throughout  all  ages  : 
"  God  said  let  there  be  light,  and  there  was  light.  And  God 
saw  the  light  that  it  was  good,  and  God  divided  the  light 
from  the  darkness,  and  God  called  the  light  day,  and  the 
darkness  he  called  night ;  and  the  evening  and  the  morning 
were  the  first  day." 

Every  utterance  of  a  mind  filled  with  great  thoughts  is 
boldly  figurative,  and  the  figures  are  bold  in  proportion  to 
the  intensity  of  the  speaker's  emotion,  and  to  the  poverty  in 
words  expressive  of  his  thought  and  feeling  of  the  language 
which  he  is  using.  Thus  it  appears  that  our  prophet,  uttering 
the  grandest  truths  that  can  enter  a  finite  mind,  and  nat- 
urally led  by  his  subject,  after  the  delivery  of  his  first  prop- 
osition, to  speak  of  day  and  night,  is  thereby  induced  to  con- 
tinue in  the  bold  figure  of  describing  the  creation  as  a  series 
of  clays'  works.  He  does  not  bring  the  figure  forward  offen- 
sively, as  has  been  often  done  by  his  interpreters,  he  does 
not  distinctly  affirm  that  the  creation  was  the  work  of  six 
successive  days,  but  simply  divides  his  description  of  creation 
into  six  periods,  by  adding  at  the  close  of  each  important 
division  of  his  subject  the  poetical  refrain,  And  it  was  evening 
and  it  was  morning  on  that  day.  These  days  of  creation  are 
not,  then,  to  be  considered  as  periods  of  time,  short  or  long, 
any  more  than  if  the  prophet  had  said,  "  In  the  first  place 
God  created  matter  and  its  forces,  in  the  second  place  he 
made  the  heavens  above,"  etc.,  we  should  consider  creation 
as  having  been  accomplished   in  six  successive  portions  of 


1875.]  THE  FIRST  CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS.  129 

space.  The  six  periods  are  neither  periods  of  space  nor  of 
time,  but  are  logical  divisions  in  the  survey  of  the  universe, 
which  the  prophet  makes  in  the  fulfilment  of  his  mission, — 
to  make  a  comprehensive  and  exhaustive  statement  of  the 
fact  that  all  things,  past  present  and  to  come,  visible  and 
invisible,  are  the  workmanship  of  God. 

Having  thus  declared,  in  the  first  place,  God  to  be  the 
Creator  of  matter  and  its  forces,  the  prophet  would  naturally 
turn  to  the  heavens,  and  say  that  they  wore  the  work  of  the 
same  God.  In  doing  it  he  must  use  the  Hebrew  words :  they 
called  it  a  firmament,  which  upheld  the  clouds  and  stores  of 
rain,  and  the  prophet  simply  says,  God  made  that  firmament ; 
without  implying  it  to  be  hard  and  hammered  out,  any  more 
than  we  imply  that  it  was  heaved  up,  by  calling  it  heaven. 
In  the  third  place  he  would  naturally  turn  again  to  the  earth, 
and  declare  its  arrangement  of  seas  and  continents  to  be  his 
work,  and  intelligently  designed  by  him  for  the  use  of  man  ; 
God  gathered  the  seas,  and  raised  the  dry  land,  and  saw  that 
it  was  good.  He  also  gave  the  earth  its  fertility,  and  adapted 
its  grass  and  herbs  and  trees  to  their  future  uses,  and  saw 
that  it  was  good  —  that  the  adaptation  was  perfect.  All  the 
work  of  Ritter  and  Guyot,  all  the  arguments  of  the  Bridge- 
water  Treatises,  and  the  Graham  Lectures,  are  thus  foretold 
in  these  brief  sentences  of  the  Book  of  Genesis. 

In  the  fourth  place,  continues  our  early  prophet,  he  who 
made  the  heavens  and  the  earth  adapted  their  relations  to 
each  other  —  the  sun  to  give  light  and  warmth,  and  the 
change  of  seasons  ;  the  moon  to  light  the  night ;  the  two  to 
furnish  the  means  of  chronology,  signs  and  seasons,  days  and 
years.  He  made,  also,  the  stars,  whose  uses  it  will  be  left 
for  far  distant  generations  to  discover ;  but  God  saw  that  it 
was  all  good ;  he  foresaw  and  foreordained  the  uses  that  even 
the  stars  will  have  in  distant  ages.  This  prophecy  has  been 
in  our  days  fulfilled,  and  the  stars  have  given  to  man,  in  the 
latter  half  of  this  nineteenth  century  after  Christ,  some  of 
the  grandest  opportunities  for  intellectual  triumphs  that  have 
ever  been  achieved  by  human  genius. 


130  THE  FIRST  CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS.  [April> 

Iii  the  fifth  place,  he  goes  on  to  say,  it  was  God  who  gave 
the  sea  its  myriad  creatures,  that  swim  in  the  depths  beneath, 
or  on  the  surface,  or  fly  over  its  waves;  and  he  saw  from 
the  beginning  that  it  was  all  good  —  that  all  these  creatures 
also  were  adapted  to  each  other,  to  their  place,  and  to  the 
future  uses,  corporal  and  intellectual,  of  man. 

Then,  in  the  sixth  place,  it  was  God  also  who  created  the 
tribes  of  earth,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest,  in  all  their 
variety,  each  with  its  own  nature,  and  capable  of  perpetuating 
its  kind  ;  and  it  was  he,  also,  who  created  man  in  his  own 
image,  capable  of  understanding  and  using  all  these  works  ; 
it  was  he  who  gave  us  dominion  over  all  things,  and  pro- 
nounced all  things  very  good — perfectly  adapted  to  the  future 
needs  of  that  human  race  which  he  had  placed  on  the  earth 
to  rule  and  use  it.  The  long  course  of  history,  slowly  de- 
veloping the  exceeding  richness  of  man's  nature,  has,  at  the 
same  time,  developed  the  divine  fulness  of  this  most  ancient 
prophecy,  declaring  that  God  in  the  beginning  made  a  grant 
of  terrestrial  sovereignty  to  man,  and  pronounced  the  whole 
universe  adapted  to  his  needs.  One  knows  not  which  most 
to  admire  in  our  nineteenth  century,  the  mastery  which  the 
human  intellect  is  acquiring  of  the  intellectual  revelations  of 
nature,  or  the  discovery  of  new  and  useful  properties  in  the 
various  forms  of  matter. 

The  prophet's  task  is  accomplished ;  he  has  made  a  com- 
plete and  exhaustive  statement  of  the  great  truth  entrusted  to 
him  ;  he  has  announced  God  as  the  Creator  and  Controller  of 
matter  and  its  forces ;  whether  in  the  heavens  or  on  the 
earth  ;  whether  in  the  earth  and  seas,  or  in  the  plants  and 
animals ;  whether  in  the  lower  animals,  or  in  man,  who  is 
created  in  his  Maker's  image,  and  set  to  have  dominion  over 
all  things  below.  The  prophet's  burden  is  delivered,  and  he 
feels  the  joy  of  rest.  He  adds,  therefore,  one  more  thought  ; 
God,  the  Creator  of  all,  has  not  exhausted  his  power  in  his 
work,  he  ended  voluntarily,  —  he  rested  on  the  seventh  day, 
not  because  his  power  was  exhausted,  but  because  he  cho.-.c  ; 
and  he  blessed  the  seventh  day  and  hallowed  it :  he  enjoys  now 
the  sio;ht  of  the  things  which  he  has  made. 


1875.]  THE  FIRST  CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS. 


131 


Interpreted  in  this  way,  there  is  not  a  phrase  in  the  whole 
account  which  militates  against  the  hypothesis  that  it  was 
uttered  from  the  highest  divine  inspiration  ;  that  is,  by  a  man 
to  whom  the  whole  truth  in  both  science  and  theology  had 
been  revealed  ;  nor  is  there  a  phrase  which  is  not  explained 
by  the  hypothesis  that  the  sole  emphasis  is  to  be  placed  upon 
the  divine  name,  —  that  the  sole  intent  of  the  account  is  to 
reveal  the  one  truth  that  in  the  beginning  God  created  heaven 
and  earth. 

But  if  the  account  came  thus  by  a  higher  inspiration  than 
that  of  genius,  we  shall  probably  find,  on  examination,  that 
there  are  other  meanings  in  this  passage ;  a  greater  wealth 
of  meaning  than  the  prophet  himself  .was  aware  of.  The 
doctrine  of  manifold  meanings  in  the  scripture  is  dangerous  ; 
and  we  do  not  propose  to  advocate  it.  The  word  is  written 
to  convey  one  thought  and  feeling,  and  is  to  be  quoted  as 
authority  for  that  one  end  only.  Nevertheless,  such  is  the 
richness  of  God's  wisdom,  that  if  he  inspires  a  man  to  speak, 
that  speech  will  partake  somewhat  of  the  marvellous  character 
of  the  works  of  nature,  which  always  subserve  multiform 
purposes.  It  is  a  great  triumph  of  human  ingenuity  to  con- 
trive, occasionally,  a  tool  that  shall  combine  in  itself  several 
uses.  But  the  substances  of  nature  are  usually  applicable  to 
multifarious  purposes  ;  the  tools  of  nature  serve  many  ends  ; 
as  the  tongue  is  used  in  tasting,  chewing,  swallowing,  speak- 
ing, as  a  delicate  organ  of  touch,  etc.  If,  therefore,  we  find 
that  in  this  account  of  the  creation  there  are,  besides  its  main 
meaning,  as  expounded  above,  sundry  secondary  meanings, 
each  obvious,  just,  and  true,  it  will  confirm  our  faith  in  the 
divine  inspiration  of  this  pre-Mosaic  speech. 

But  the  history  of  Jewish  and  Christian  literature  is  full 
of  attempts  to  draw  from  this  chapter  meanings  of  various 
kinds,  scientific  and  religious.  It  is  not  necessary,  and 
would  not  be  profitable,  for  us  to  refer  to  them  in  detail. 
The  Jewish  doctors  found  abstruse  philosophical  meanings 
in  single  words  and  single  letters,  nay,  even  in  the 
letters.     John  Scotus  Erigena,  the  first  great  light  in  ad\ 


132  THE  FIRST  CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS.  [April 

of  the  revival  of  learning,  found  in  it  evidence  of  his  grand 
theory  of  the  division  of  nature  ;  insisting  that  the  chaos  was 
no  chaos,  but  only  a  potential  cosmos,  the  ideals  of  creation 
intrusted  by  the  Father,  for  execution,  to  the  Son,  who  is  the 
Beginning,  from  whom  the  Book  of  Genesis  is  named  In 
our  own  day,  Arnold  Guyot,  and  others,  have  sought  to  find 
modern  geology  confirmed  here,  and  Tayler  Lewis  has  given  a 
grand  exposition  of  the  Six  Days  as  Time  Cycles,  arguing 
chiefly  on  philological  grounds.  None  of  these  attempts,  to 
make  a  secondary  meaning  become  primary,  have,  in  our 
judgment,  succeeded  farther  than  to  show  the  language  capable 
of  bearing  the  secondary  meaning,  and  thus  giving  an  indica- 
tion of  its  wonderful  richness.  The  primary  meaning  attached 
to  it  by  Peirce,  as  we  have  now  endeavored  to  set  it  forth, 
being  the  grandest  meaning  capable  of  being  put  into  human 
speech,  and  most  perfectly  according  both  with  the  language 
of  the  chapter,  and  with  its  position  as  the  introduction  to  the 
books  of  the  Law,  the  history  of  the  revelation  through  Moses, 
must  be  accepted  as  the  primary  meaning ;  and  the  secondary 
meanings  then  become  of  interest  only  as  revealing  the 
inspired  character  of  the  account ;  that  it  is  many  sided,  like 
a  work  of  nature,  and  implies  a  divine  fulness  of  wisdom, 
consciously  or  unconsciously  held  in  the  writer's  mind. 

Two  of  these  secondary  meanings  are  especially  worthy  of 
notice,  since  they  do  not  involve  subtilties  of  thought,  or 
minute  attention  to  words  and  verbal  constructions,  but  are 
patent  on  the  face  of  a  translation  ;  the  first  is  the  natural 
suggestion  that  the  six  days  are  not  only  in  the  logical  order 
of  the  prophet's  thought,  but  in  the  actual  chronological  order 
of  events  ;  the  second  is,  that  the  prophet  anticipates,  and  as 
it  were  heads  off,  all  the  subterfuges  of  an  atheistic  spirit. 

First,  then,  the  six  days,  although  primarily  but  six  divi- 
sions in  the  prophet's  order  of  thought,  actually  represent  six 
periods  of  time.  If  the  mathematicians  finally  allow  the 
nebular  hypothesis  to  stand,  as  they  seem  of  late  years  inclined 
to  do,  then  there  was  chaos  antecedent  to  the  cosmos.  And 
modern  discoveries  rapidly  tend  toward  the  conclusion  that 


1875.]  THE  FIRST  CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS.  133 

all  the  known  properties  of  matter  are  but  modes  of  motion, 
so  that  the  first  act  of  creation  must  necessarily  have  been 
that  the  Spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  face  of  the  waters. 
Another  discovery  of  our  nineteenth  century  is,  that  in  every 
form  of  matter  known  to  us,  there  is  actually  light  as  well  as 
heat  —  absolute  darkness  is  as  unknown  as  the  absolute  zero 
of  heat.  It  has  been  so  from  the  beginning  ;  and  when  crea- 
tion flashed  into  being,  light  was  the  first  created  beam.  In 
the  very  language,  therefore,  in  which  this  earliest  prophet 
announced  God  to  be  the  Creator  of  matter,  and  of  all  the  forces 
which  govern  it,  there  is,  we  might  say,  an  implied  knowledge 
of  the  great  physical  discoveries  of  the  present  day. 

Moreover,  if  the  nebular  hypothesis  is  finally  established, 
in  spite  of  the  difficulties  surrounding  certain  portions  of  it, 
then  the  heavens  were  made  before  the  earth ;  the  nebulous 
mass  separated  into  stars  before  it  divided  into  planets,  and 
it  divided  into  planets  before  the  planets  became  cool  enough 
to  form  into  continents  and  seas  and  became  inhabitable. 
Here,  then,  the  logical  order  of  the  second  day  is  the  chron- 
ological order  of  the  nebular  hypothesis ;  another  instance  in 
which  this  earliest  religious  teacher  anticipates  the  boasted 
discoveries  of  Herschel  and  La  Place. 

Then,  if  the  modern  physiologists  and  geologists  are  right 
in  their  interpretation  of  the  facts  of  nature,  the  third  division 
of  this  chapter  was  actually  next  in  the  order  of  time.  The 
glowing  mass  of  the  earth  cooled,  the  steam  was  condensed 
into  seas,  the  upheaval  of  the  continents  followed,  and  the 
protruding  rocks  were  covered,  above  and  below  the  water 
line,  with  vegetation.  And  now,  also,  comes,  in  its  proper 
order  of  time,  according  to  modern  scientific  theory,  the 
relation  established  between  the  sun  and  moon  and  stars,  on 
one  side,  and  the  earth  upon  the  other.  The  atmosphere 
cleared,  by  the  condensation  of  the  seas,  of  its  former 
perpetual  clouds,  allows  the  rays  of  these  bodies  to  come  in 
upon  the  thin  crust  of  the  earth  ;  and  the  sun's  heat  becomes, 
according  to  Peirce's  acute  observation  on  the  direction  of 
mountain  ranges  and  coast-lines  on  the  globe,  the   efficient 

Vol.  XXXII.  No.  126.  40 


134  THE  FIRST  CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS.  [April, 

cause  determining  the  form  of  the  more  fully  developed 
continents,  and  a  perpetual  witness  that  the  obliquity  of  the 
ecliptic,  and  the  main  relations  of  the  solar  system,  have  not 
been  changed  since  the  birth  of  time, — since  God  established 
them  on  the  fourth  clay  of  creation. 

The  fifth  and  sixth  day's  work  prove,  also,  according  to  the 
modern  discoveries  of  geology,  to  have  been  not  only  natural 
steps  in  the  progress  of  the  seer's  thought,  but  actual  steps  in 
the  order  of  terrestrial  development.  The  sea  was  first  filled 
with  living  things,  swimming  in  its  depths  or  flying  over  it, 
and  afterward  came  the  land  animals,  and  as  the  crown  of  the 
series  came  man.  Nay,  even  the  seventh  day's  rest  stands 
approved  by  the  results  of  modern  investigation,  for  not  a 
trace  of  progress  or  development,  or  of  the  appearance  of  new 
forms  upon  the  earth,  can  be  found  by  the  most  ardent  evolu- 
tionist in  any  rock-records  since  the  appearance  of  man  upon 
the  planet,  —  a  fact  which  a  firm  believer  in  development 
endeavored  once  to  explain  to  us,  by  assuming  that  the 
development  of  all  the  lower  orders  was  arrested  by  the 
presence  of  man  as  the  head  of  the  series.  Sweep  man  from 
the  planet,  he  said,  and  the  development  would  again  go  on 
till  man  were  reproduced.  We  may  be  excused  for  thinking 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  more  rational  than  such  a  specu- 
lation. 

Again,  this  chapter  may  bear,  as  another  secondary  mean- 
ing, an  interpretation  which  makes  it  an  answer,  in  advance, 
to  all  the  subterfuges  of  an  atheistic  or  an  idolatrous  heart. 
In  this  light  it  might  almost  seem  that  the  prophet  had  fore- 
seen all  the  various  speculations  in  which  men  would  indulge 
concerning  the  origin  of  the  universe,  and  had  said,  "  I  will 
anticipate  them  all,  and  in  my  declaration  of  the  being  of  the 
one  Almighty  God,  I  will  show  to  all  those  who  deny  him 
and  turn  from  him,  that  I  foresaw  their  errors,  and  lifted  up 
my  voice  in  the  beginning  to  warn  them  from  the  paths  that 
lead  to  destruction."  "  The  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart," 
there  is  no  God,  —  matter  is  eternal,  all  things  move  on  by 
the  forces  inherent  in  the  original  substance  of  which  all  is 


1875.]  THE  FIRST  CHAPTER  OF   GENESIS.  135 

composed.  Against  this  oldest  form  of  atheistic  speculation 
comes  the  clear  announcement, "  In  the  beginning  God  created 
the  heaven  and  the  earth  " — created  the  very  material  of  which 
they  are  made,  and  it  was  from  his  command  that  the  forces 
of  nature  sprang.  The  atoms  thereof  are  in  his  hand  to  all 
generations,  and  they  never  disobey  his  void.  And  the 
next  utterances  are  against  the  oldest  forms  of  idolatry. 
Jupiter,  the  aether,  the  air,  have  been  confounded  with  each 
other  and  regarded  as  the  givers  of  rain  and  of  fruitful 
seasons,  and  worshipped  with  sacrifices  of  thanksgiving  and 
supplications  for  continued  prosperity.  But,  says  our  prophet 
in  advance,  it  was  God  who  created  the  firmament,  and  when 
the  clouds  drop  fatness,  it  is  at  his  command  ;  that  is,  it  is  of 
his  foreordaining  law.  Give  your  thanks  to  him  who  can 
hear  and  accept  the  offering ;  give  them  not  to  the  uncon- 
scious creatures  of  his  power.  The  earth,  also,  has  been 
worshipped  as  the  mother  of  all  things  ;  her  divine  bounty  is 
manifest  in  the  fruity  that  she  pours  forth  ;  and,  under  various 
names,  Terra  and  Cybelc  have  received  thanks  and  sacrifices. 
As  if  foreseeing  this  future  idolatry,  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis  announces  that  it  was  God,  the  Creator  of  the  earth, 
who  gave  her  her  power  of  bringing  forth  grass  and  herb  and 
tree  for  the  service  of  man,  and  that  it  is  to  him  alone  that 
we  should  give  thanks  for  all  these  mercies. 

Most  plausible  among  the  forms  of  idolatry  is  the  worship 
of  the  heavenly  host.  Men  who  beheld  the  sun  shining,  and 
the  moon  walking  in  brightness,  have  been  secretly  enticed, 
and  they  have  yielded  to  the  persuasion  that  these  were 
indeed  gods.  All  literature,  all  mythology,  is  full  of  traces 
left  by  this  worship  of  the  stars  of  heaven.  But  in  the  earliest 
age  of  the  world  is  this  clear  truth  uttered,  to 
future  form  of  the  worship  of  the  sun  and  stars,  that  it  was 
God  who  created  them  and  appointed  their  revolutions  in  the 
sky,  to  mark  our  clays  and  months  and  years,  our  seasons  and 
our  hours,  for  us  ;  that  the  grand  host  of  heaven  is.  after  all, 
only  one  of  God's  gifts  to  man. 

Other  men  have  been  seduced  by  the  mystery  of  animal 


136  THE  FIRST  CHAPTER  OF   GENESIS.  [April, 

life  into  the  idolatrous  worship  of  bulls  and  rams,  of  crocodiles 
and  cats  and  ibises ;  and  these,  too,  among  nations  of  the 
highest  of  ancient  civilizations.  And  it  might  seem  that  this 
was  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  prophet  commissioned  so 
long  before  Moses  to  proclaim  the  unity  and  omnipotence  of 
God,  should,  foreseeing  this  foul  apostasy,  leave  it  clearly  on 
record  that  men  had  been  warned  against  this  criminal  folly, 
and  had  been  distinctly  taught  that  the  life  in  these  animals 
is  but  the  gift  of  the  one  God,  who  made  all  these  creatures, 
not  as  objects  of  human  worship,  but  for  human  uses ;  that 
God  has  given  to  man  complete  dominion  over  all  sublunary 
things  —  given  him  a  grant  to  use  for  his  own  purposes  all 
things  below,  animate  and  inanimate. 

But  the  human  heart  is  deceitful  above  all  things  and 
desperately  wicked,  who  can  know  it,  who  shall  anticipate  all 
its  errors  ?  The  crude  atheism  of  the  materialist  passes 
away,  the  various  forms  of  fetichism  and  idolatry  are  out- 
grown, and  a  highly  cultivated,  and  speculative  nation  begins 
to  inquire  into  the  foundations  of  faith.  They  behold  the 
science  of  their  times,  seeking  the  causes  of  outward  phe- 
nomena, gradually  lead  to  the  perception  of  a  unity  in  the 
forces  of  nature  —  to  the  perception  that  there  is,  indeed,  but 
one  Cause  of  the  universe.  By  what  name  shall  they  speak 
of  this  one  Original  Cause  of  all  causes  ?  It  is  evident  that 
no  human  intellect  can  understand  this  Cause,  and  by  search- 
ing find  out  the  Almighty,  or  tell  out  his  wonders.  Some, 
in  their  contemplation  of  this  insoluble  mystery  are  moved 
to  declare  that  the  First  Cause  is  wholly  unknown  and  un- 
knowable, and  that  we  can  predicate  of  it  no  attributes  what- 
ever ;  and  here  they  would  have  us  rest.  Others  would  say 
that  the  First  Cause  builds  the  universe,  as  the  soul  of  an 
animal  builds  its  body  —  it  is  a  principle  or  power  of  growth, 
evolving  itself  ever  in  more  and  more  complex  forms,  by  a 
necessity  of  its  own  nature,  and  herein  lies  the  insoluble 
mystery  presented  to  our  speculations.  Others  add  that  this 
soul  of  the  universe,  struggling  out  of  brute  matter  into 
vegetable  forms,  struggling  with  more  energy  into  the  bodies 


1875.]  THE  FIRST  CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS.  107 

of  the  animal  kingdom,  working  ever  upward  and  climbing 
for  something  higher,  reaches  its  fullest  development  in  the 
human  frame,  and  attains  self-consciousness  first  in  man's 
brain.  According  to  this  view  an  honest  man  is,  not  only 
the  noblest  work  of  God,  but  is  himself  the  highest  god  that 
has  yet  come  into  being.  Such  is  the  extreme  into  which 
the  conceited  human  intellect  runs,  in  endeavoring  to  reason 
concerning  the  nature  of  the  Deity.  In  the  full-blown  state 
of  this  egotheism  a  man  becomes  conscious  of  himself  as 
being  identical  with  the  First  Cause  of  all  things ;  and  may 
think  of  himself  as  causing  plants  to  grow,  and  rain  to  fall, 
of  leading  the  march  of  the  hosts  of  heaven,  and  calling  the 
stars  to  their  posts  of  duty.  Strange  as  this  folly  may  seem 
to  the  ears  of  common  sense,  it  passes  for  wisdom  and  high 
philosophy  among  some  highly  cultivated  and  very  acute 
metaphysical  thinkers. 

To  us  it  seems  sadder  than  atheism ;  it  just  as  effectually 
takes  the  sun  out  of  heaven,  and  puts  an  immoveable  rock 
over  the  mouth  of  the  sepulchre ;  it  takes  all  the  light  of 
love  and  joy  out  of  human  life,  and  substitutes  this  insane 
self-conceit  for  filial  and  fraternal  love.  We  recoil  with 
horror  from  these  conclusions  concerning  the  nature  of  the 
universe  and  the  soul,  and  say,  the  First  Cause  is  greater 
than  all  which  he  has  made ;  inscrutable  in  his  attributes 
though  he  be,  those  attributes  must  include  power  and  wisdom 
and  love,  for  the  universe  contains  them  and  their  manifes- 
tations ;  the  world  is  the  embodiment  of  wisdom  and  love 
through  power ;  and  the  only  power  we  know  is  the  power 
of  will.  The  answer  to  which  our  reason  thus  attains  is 
simply  the  truth  which  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  was 
written  to  announce,  that  there  is  one  God,  whose  fiat  is  the 
cause  of  all  that  is.  But  mark  how  the  eye  of  the  prophet 
who  wrote  it  seems  to  have  pierced  through  the  long  ages  of 
idolatry  in  every  form,  and  through  the  misty  clouds  of  spec- 
ulation which  have  arisen  since  the  seventeenth  ecu 
detected  this  pernicious  outgrowth  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy 
in  our  time,  and  uttered,  fifty  centuries  in  advance,  his  protest 


138  THE  FIKST  CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS.  [Aprii, 

against  the  blasphemous  folly ;  saying,  that  creation  was  a 
voluntary  act  of  God,  and  that  he,  of  his  own  pleasure, 
created  man  in  his  own  image.  We  are  not  the  creators  of 
God,  the  highest  conscious  beings,  and  alone  in  our  knowledge 
of  the  laws  of  the  universe  ;  but  we  arc  the  creatures  of  God, 
made  in  his  image,  gifted  with  power  of  thought  to  apprehend 
partially  his  designs  ;  with  affections  to  feel  feebly  what  his 
love  is  ;  with  power  that  we  may,  in  our  works  of  labor  and 
art,  rise  into  awe  at  his  omnipotence.  Our  powers  are  faint 
images  of  his,  not  his  the  weak  dilution  of  ours. 

Finally,  the  announcement  of  the  seventh  day's  rest  may 
be  considered  as  a  caveat  against  the  atheism  referred  to  in 
the  Epistle  of  James,  and  drawn  from  a  consideration  of  the 
unvarying  constancy  of  the  operations  of  nature.  '  All  things 
seem  capable  finally  of  reduction  to  constant  laws  of  periodic 
return  to  their  former  condition,  giving  thus  a  suggestion 
that  the  universe  may  be  eternal,  and  undergoing  an  eternal 
series  of  evolutions  from  some  necessity  inherent  in  its  nature. 
If,  in  the  olden  days  God  created  the  things  that  now  appear, 
why  do  we  not  sec  him  now  creating,  at  least  occasionally, 
some  things.  No  act  of  creation  has  ever  been  observed ;  the 
law  of  secondary  causation  is  unbroken ;  each  state  of  the 
universe  flows  directly  from  a  previous  state ;  thus  it  will  be 
forever ;  thus  it  has  been  from  eternity ;  and  "  there  is  no 
occasion  for  the  hypothesis  of  a  Deity."  The  prophet,  fore- 
seeing, apparently,  this  form  of  atheism,  meets  it  in  advance, 
by  saying,  God  rested  on  the  seventh  day, —  he  voluntarily 
ceased  from  acts  of  creation,  for  reasons  of  his  own,  which  we 
may  not  fathom.  Yet,  as  he  pronounced  creation  very  good, 
that  is,  useful  in  the  highest  degree,  it  is  lawful  for  us  to 
observe  that  a  creation  in  which  miracles  are  of  rare  occur- 
rence, and  the  usual  course  of  events,  flowing  from  strictly 
invariable  laws,  is  very  seldom  broken,  is  far  better  adapted 
as  a  school  in  which  to  develop  the  mind  and  the  soul  of 
man,  than  a  creation  could  be  in  which  miracle  was  too 
frequent.  The  sublime  lessons  given  by  the  laws  of  the 
universe  have  been  the  means  of  all  the  development  which 


1875.]  THE  FIRST  CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS.  l:)<) 

has  brought  the  light  of  the  nineteenth  century  out  of  the 
darkness  of  preceding  ages  ;  those  laws  are  not  yet  exhausted ; 
the  progress  of  discovery  is,  indeed,  more  rapid  now  than  ever 
before  ;  but  all  scientific  study  of  the  order  of  the  physical 
universe  is  necessarily  based  on  faith  in  the  inviolability  of 
physical  law.  The  rest  of  God's  seventh  clay  has  thu 
come  the  source  of  all  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  blessings 
that  exalt  man  above  the  beasts  ;  while  the  benefits  of  the 
first  six  days'  work  are  shared  by  us  with  the  mute  creatures. 
This  then,  in  brief,  is  the  exposition  given  by  Professor 
Peirce  to  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis.  The  hypothesis  that 
it  is  an  express  revelation  from  God,  the  utterance  of  truth 
by  a  prophet  who  spake  with  a  wisdom  above  the  reach  of 
human  endeavor,  is  absolutely  required  to  explain  the  com- 
bination of  so  much  knowledge  of  modern  discoveries  and 
modern  speculations  with  the  self-evident  fact  of  its  extreme 
antiquity.  That  antiquity  is  avouched  to  us  by  the  language, 
which  although  treating  of  the  highest  possible  themes,  is 
neither  poetical  nor  philosophical,  but  simply  descriptive  of 
phenomena,  as  they  appear  to  the  uneducated  eye.  That 
knowledge  of  human  science  and  human  philosophy,  in  their 
latest  development,  is  shown  by  the  order  of  time  in  which 
the  events  are  arranged  —  in  making  motion  the  beginning  of 
creation,  and  light  the  first  effect  of  motion ;  in  making  the 
earth  covered  with  plants  before  the  sun  and  planets,  of  still 
earlier  creation,  were  visible  from  its  surface  ;  in  making 
animals  subsequent  to  plants ;  in  making  man  the  last 
comer  upon  the  planet ;  and  in  making  a  distinct  denial  of 
every  form  of  pantheistic  and  of  atheistic  theory,  down  to 
our  own  day.  Its  primary  object  is  not  to  describe  the  times 
or  places  or  succession  of  the  acts  of  creative  power,  but 
would  simply  lead  us  to  bow  in  grateful  adoration  before  the 
one  God,  whose  will  is  the  cause  of  all  that  is,  and  whose 
loving-kindness,  looking  upon  the  whole,  pronounced  it  very 
good  —  all  adapted  for  beneficent  ends  to  the  creatures  whom 
he  had  made  in  his  own  image. 


